De gratia Redemptoris

On the nature of justification

Justification (δικαίωσις), by the force of the term, is the act of justifying; it can also be understood terminatively, or passively, for the effect which that act has in the one who is justified.

Just (δίκαιος) is said of a person, a thing, an act, which agrees with the norm of morals¹. Justice (δικαιοσύνη) is that quality or condition of a person or thing by which it is conformed to the norm of morals, to the law, to the divine will. In a restricted sense it is understood of the virtue which renders to each his own. The justice of God is either that by which he himself is just (Dei = genitive of possession), or that which proceeds from God, by which he makes us just (Dei = genitive of origin). To justify (δικαιόω), by analogy with the other verbs ending in — οω (τυφλόω = I make blind), can mean to make just; thus, as will appear from the argument of Sacred Scripture, in the New Testament. Yet in this sense it does not occur among profane authors, which is easily understood; for by nature a man cannot make another man just. For profane authors, then, to justify is to visit with punishments or rewards, to punish or to reward; besides, to esteem or judge something just; among the LXX the forensic use is frequent, for the act by which a judge absolves someone of a crime, declares him just, or declares which party the law favours.

The words of the thesis are taken from session 6, chapter 7 of the Council of Trent. For the innovators of the sixteenth century wholly overthrew the catholic sense of justification². According to them, in justification (through faith) the justice of Christ becomes our justice; as original sin is alien to us, so also is the justice by which we are justified: the justice of Christ is imputed to us. Nor is sin truly and perfectly destroyed in us in this justification, but it passes away in guilt and remains in act; that is, although we are truly sinners and sin remains in act in us, nevertheless God wills mercifully to spare us; the force of sin, which is to accuse, to condemn, to set an angry God before us, is taken away; in other words: sin remains, but is no longer imputed: before God the Father we are reckoned holy and just. Regeneration, vivification, the renewal of man do not belong to this justification but are distinguished from it; this follows the justification of faith and is its fruit, if faith is living and not dead.

From the opposition to these errors the doctrine stated in the thesis is easily understood. The sinner is unjust and an enemy of God. Justification is a true and properly so-called remission of sins; a true remission, not merely the non-imputation of a sin that in fact remains, but sin itself ceases in man, is truly destroyed, is no longer present. Sins are understood here as those by which a man is truly made unjust, original sin and personal mortal sins. These, as is clear, are not to be conceived as though the act of sin itself, once performed, were made undone, but the guilt contracted by that act and the stain brought upon the soul are wholly taken away. Justification is further said to be the sanctification and renewal of the inner man; therefore man not only ceases to be a sinner, but is positively transferred to a higher state.

Sanctity means internal sanctity, by which a man is not only held to be holy and just but is inwardly constituted holy — that sanctity, as is clear, which alone is had in the present order; renewal, that is, the passage from the former state to a new and better one, which consists in this, that man be truly just, a friend of God, and an heir according to the hope of eternal life, who can and ought by right to hope for eternal life promised to him as to a friend of God.

Both the remission of sin and the internal renewal are had in justification itself. But what relation exists between them is not yet treated in this place; in fact one is not had without the other: sin is not remitted without sanctification and renewal, nor is the renewal and sanctification of the sinner without the remission of sin. Nor does this thesis yet determine more accurately in what that sanctification and renewal consists.

Briefly, then, it can be said: the Protestants defend an imputed justice, catholics an internal justice of their own, inherent in the justified man himself.

A middle view, as it were, has also been proposed: some Protestants (Martin Butzer) admitted, besides imputed justice, a certain inherent justice. Some catholics too (Contarini, Pigge, Gropper, the “Colonienses”) proposed a doctrine of a “double justice”. This is found in the book “Interim” (1541); in the “Antididagma” (Cologne 1544, f. 13) it is stated thus: “We are justified by God by a double justice as it were through formal and essential causes. Of these the one and the prior is the consummated justice of Christ, not indeed as it is outside us in him, but as and when the same is imputed to us for justice (so long, that is, as it is apprehended by faith). This very justice of Christ thus imputed to us is the chief and highest cause of our justification, on which we ought principally to rest and to trust. In another way, however, we are formally justified by an inherent justice, which is given, infused and made our own together with the remission of sins, the renewal of the Holy Spirit and the diffusion of charity into our hearts, according to the measure of each one's faith. Yet upon this inherent justice (because it is imperfect) we do not principally rest”. In the Council of Trent the question of the double justice, which Seripando especially defended, was proposed for discussion in this form:

“Whether the justified man, who has performed good works out of grace and divine help, deriving from the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that he has retained inherent justice, presenting himself with it before the tribunal of Christ, is to be reckoned to have satisfied the divine justice unto the merit and acquisition of eternal life; or whether with this inherent justice he further needs the mercy and justice of Christ, that is, the merit of his passion, whereby the defects of his justice may be supplied, which justice is communicated by divine dispensation according to the measure of faith and charity”³. The Council rejected the doctrine of the double justice; therefore, after it had said in ch. 7: “the sole formal cause (of justification) is the justice of God, not that by which he himself is just, but that by which he makes us just, by which... we are not only reputed, but are truly named and are just, receiving justice in ourselves, each one his own”⁴, it teaches in ch. 16: “nothing further is to be believed wanting to the justified themselves, so that they be reckoned to have fully satisfied the divine law by those works which have been done in God, according to the state of this life, and truly to have merited eternal life, to be obtained also in its own time (if nevertheless they depart in grace)... Thus neither is our own justice set up as though it were of ourselves, nor is the justice of God ignored or rejected; for the justice that is called ours, because we are justified by it as inherent in us, that same is God's, because it is infused into us by God through the merit of Christ”⁵.

THE CHURCH'S DOCUMENTS

Leo X condemned the proposition of Luther: “To deny that sin remains in a child after baptism is to tread under foot both Paul and Christ”⁶.

The Council of Trent, in session 6, defined this doctrine. Ch. 7: Justification “is not the remission of sins alone, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inner man... whence man from unjust is made just and from an enemy a friend, that he may be an heir according to the hope of eternal life... we are not only reputed, but are truly named and are just, receiving justice in ourselves, each one his own... in justification itself, together with the remission of sins, man receives all these things infused at once...”⁷.

Can. 11: “If anyone says that men are justified either by the imputation of the justice of Christ alone, or by the remission of sins alone, to the exclusion of grace and charity, which is poured forth into their hearts by the Holy Spirit and inheres in them, or even that the grace by which we are justified is only the favour of God: let him be anathema”⁸.

In session 5, in the decree on original sin, it had already laid down: “If anyone denies that by the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted, or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away, but says that it is only shaved off or not imputed: let him be anathema; for in those who are reborn God hates nothing...”⁹.

Pius V condemned the propositions of Baius: 42. “The justice by which the ungodly is justified through faith consists formally in obedience to the commandments, which is the justice of works...” 43. “In men doing penance before the sacrament of absolution, and in catechumens before baptism, there is true justification, separated however from the remission of sins”¹⁰.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

A true remission of sins: Act 3, 19: “Repent therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out”. Ἐξαλείφειν means to wipe out; it is used of a writing that is to be blotted out, Col 2, 14: blotting out... the handwriting of the decree; Apoc 3, 5: I will not blot out his name from the book of life. Cf. Is 43, 25; Ps 50, 3. — 1 Cor 6, 11: “And such (namely sinners) were some of you; but you are washed (properly: you have taken care to wash yourselves), but you are sanctified, but you are justified”. By washing, stains are removed, not merely covered. — Rom 5, 19: “For as by the disobedience of one man many were constituted sinners, so also by the obedience of one many shall be constituted just”. As true sin (which the Protestants themselves concede), so also true justice; therefore it is no longer sin. — Rom 8, 1: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus”. Cf. Eph 5, 25 ss.; from the Old Testament 1 Par 21, 8; 2 Reg 12, 13; Ps 102, 12.

They are renewed: Baptism is the laver of regeneration and renovation: Tit 3, 5. On this regeneration Io 1, 3; 3, 6; 1 Io 2, 29; 3, 9; 4, 7; 5, 1. 4. 18; 1 Petr 1, 3. 23. (See the following thesis.) Before regeneration man is the old man (παλαιός, the former): Rom 6, 6; Eph 4, 22; Col 3, 9. By this word is indicated both the corruption of the former state and that something new succeeds it. After regeneration he is the new man: Rom 6, 4, newness of life (καινότης); they put on the new man Eph 4, 24 (καινός); Col 3, 9 (νέος); cf. Gal 3, 27, to put on Christ; they are renewed: Col 3, 10 (ἀνακαινούμενον); Eph 4, 23 (ἀνανεοῦσθαι). And so there is talk of a new creature: Gal 6, 15 (καινὴ κτίσις); 2 Cor 5, 17: if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; cf. Iac 1, 18. But such a renewal cannot be understood except as a real, true change in the man himself. And this is had by baptism, the laver of renovation.

They are justified: Rom 3, 24: “Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”. Rom 3, 28, justification through faith; cf. Gal 2, 16. 17; Rom 5, 1, from faith; Rom 5, 9, in his blood; Rom 5, 19, “they shall be constituted just”; 1 Cor 6, 11: “you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God”; Tit 3, 7: “justified by his grace”. These things cannot be understood in the sense that men are merely reputed or declared just, while in fact they are not inwardly just; for 1) the discourse is of a justification to which man cooperates, and which is the effect of redemption; 2) Rom 5, 19 has a parallelism between constituting a sinner and constituting a just man; but sinners are constituted really and not only imputatively; therefore the same must be said of their being constituted just; 3) much less can these things be so understood when one attends to the rest of the doctrine of Sacred Scripture (sins are truly blotted out, man is inwardly renewed); 4) God, who is truthful, cannot declare or repute just one who is not truly just.

But the justice which is thus communicated is the justice of God, namely that which is from God, which has God for its author, Phil 3, 9¹¹.

A friend of God: on this friendship between God and the just man there is fuller treatment in the treatise on charity.

An heir according to the hope of eternal life: Tit 3, 7.

THE FATHERS

Several texts of the holy Fathers are found in Rouet de Iournel, Ench. Patr., ser. 355, 356, 360, 361, from which we select some; cf. also what is proposed on this matter in the treatise on Baptism and on Penance.

Sins are blotted out: ST JUSTIN: “If they do penance, all who will can obtain mercy from God, and the Scripture proclaims them blessed, saying: Blessed is he to whom the Lord has not imputed sin. That is, if he repents of his sins, he receives from God the remission of his sins; but not, as you deceive yourselves and certain others like you in this, who say that even if they are sinners, provided they have known God, the Lord does not impute sin to them”¹²

ST AUGUSTINE: “We say that baptism gives the pardon of all sins, and takes away crimes, does not shave them off; nor is it that the roots of all sins are retained in the evil flesh, as though in the case of the hairs of those who are shaved on the head, whence the sins that are again to be cut back may grow”¹³. “You affirm that I have said that grace does not perfectly make the new man. I do not say this; attend to what I say. Grace perfectly makes the new man, since it even leads him to the immortality of the body and to full felicity. Now too it perfectly renews man, as far as pertains to liberation from all sins whatsoever, not as far as pertains to liberation from all evils and from all the corruption of mortality, by which the body now weighs down the soul”¹⁴. “But you, who think that if concupiscence were an evil, the baptized would be free of it, are much mistaken. He is free of every sin, not of every evil. Which is said more plainly thus: he is free of every guilt of all evils, not of all evils”¹⁵. ST GREGORY THE GREAT: “He therefore who says that sins are not utterly forgiven in baptism, let him say that the Egyptians did not truly die in the Red Sea. But if he confesses that the Egyptians truly died, he must needs confess that sins utterly die in baptism, because surely in our absolution the truth avails more than the shadow of the truth”¹⁶.

Men are renewed: EPISTLE OF BARNABAS: “Where therefore he renewed us by the remission of sins, he made us that we might have another form, a soul namely after the manner of children, inasmuch as he refashioned us”¹⁷. “But it shall be built in the name of the Lord: take heed that the temple of the Lord be built magnificently. How? Learn. Having received the remission of sins and having hope in the name of the Lord, we are made new, created again afresh; therefore in us, in our dwelling, God truly dwells”¹⁸. ST CYRIL OF JERUSALEM: “The water is poured around outwardly, and the Spirit inwardly washes the soul without failing. And why do you marvel? Take a bodily example, small indeed and lowly, but useful for the simpler sort. If fire, passing through the thickness of iron, works so great a thing within, so that the iron becomes fire, and the cold becomes hot, and the black becomes shining; if fire, which is a body, penetrating into the body of iron, thus works without hindrance, why do you marvel if the Holy Spirit enters into the inmost soul?”¹⁹. ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM: “Just as if someone should melt down again a golden statue, defiled by time, smoke, dust and rust, he restores it to us most pure and shining, so also God has melted down our nature again, deprived of that beauty which he had himself put into it from the beginning, casting it into the waters as into a furnace and sending in the grace of the Spirit in place of fire, and thence he brings out the renewed, contending in splendour with the rays of the sun, the old man being crushed and the new man fashioned more splendid than the old was”²⁰.

Heirs of the heavenly kingdom: ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM: “For they are not only free but also holy, not only holy but also just, not only just but also sons, not only sons but also heirs, not only heirs but also brothers of Christ, and not only brothers of Christ but also co-heirs, not only co-heirs but also members, not only members but also a temple, not only a temple but also organs of the Spirit. You see how many are the bounties of baptism, and yet some reckon that heavenly grace consists in the remission of sins alone; but we have counted ten honours”²¹.

A friend: ST JOHN CHRYS.: “If then this faith has saved you, keep it also now; for what has conferred so many good things on you will without doubt not deceive you concerning things to come. For that which made the dead man, the lost man, the captive and the enemy a friend, a son, a free man, a just man and a co-heir, and furnished him with such great things as no one had ever expected — how, after such liberality and benevolence, will it not receive you hereafter?”²²

Objections

1. Ps 31, 1. 2. “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin, nor is there guile in his spirit”. The same is cited in Rom 4, 7. 8. Therefore sins are only covered, not imputed. — I answer. From what has been said in the argument from Sacred Scripture, it cannot have this sense in St Paul. Nor in the Psalm itself: before God something can be covered only in such a way, that is, withdrawn from the eyes, that it is no longer present; and because the sin is no longer present, God no longer thinks of it, that is, does not impute it.

2. 1 Petr 4, 8: “Charity covers a multitude of sins”. — I answer. The sense is: charity towards the neighbour brings it about that we dissemble the sins of others, do not attend to them; the discourse is not of the remission of one's own sins through charity; cf. Prov 10, 12; 1 Cor 13, 7.

3. To justify signifies to declare just. — I answer. It can have this sense: I grant; it always has it: I deny.

4. Rom 4, 3. 9, the discourse is of the justice of Abraham imputed. — I answer. The discourse is not of imputed justice, but faith is imputed unto justice, that is, the justice of Abraham is not from his works but from faith.

5. We are justified not by our justice but by the justice of God or of Christ (1 Cor 1, 30; 2 Cor 5, 21; Phil 3, 9); therefore the justice of Christ is imputed to us. I answer. It is not our justice, because it is not from our merit and our works but from the merit of Christ, and is conferred on us freely by God: I grant; it is not our justice, because it is not internal and proper to us: I deny. Through the merits of Christ we are justified freely, inwardly and truly by God.

6. If we were justified by our own justice, we could place our confidence in ourselves. — I answer. If it were our own, that is, from our merits alone: I grant; if it is our own, that is, internal to us, but from the merits of Christ: I deny.

For more objections see Beraza, De gratia Christi, nr. 715 ss.

The fact of a true internal renewal in the justification of the sinner being established, that renewal must now be further described. We affirm that in justification the sinner becomes a partaker of the divine nature and is constituted an adoptive son of God.

By the consortium of the divine nature is not understood that which is had by reason of the hypostatic union, nor that which is had by reason of the reception of the Eucharist; but how it is to be conceived positively cannot yet be explained in this thesis, but will become clearer and clearer in the following theses. One thing, however, must here be noted: there is no transformation into God, as appears from the condemned propositions of Eckhart and Molinos. Eckhart, prop. 10: “We are wholly transformed into God and converted into him; in like manner as in the sacrament the bread is converted into the body of Christ: so I am converted into him, because he works me into his own being, one, not like; by the living God it is true that there is no distinction there”. Prop. 11: “Whatever the Father gave to his only-begotten Son in human nature, all this he gave to me: here I except nothing, neither the union nor the sanctity, but he gave the whole to me as to himself”. Prop. 12: “Whatever Sacred Scripture says of Christ, all this is verified also of every good and divine man”. Prop. 13: “Whatever is proper to the divine nature, all this is proper to the just and divine man; on this account this man does whatever God does, and with God created heaven and earth, and is the begetter of the eternal Word, and God without such a man would not know how to do anything”¹. Molinos, prop. 5: “By doing nothing the soul annihilates itself and returns to its principle and to its origin, which is the essence of God, in which, transformed, it remains and is divinized, and God then remains in himself; for then there are no longer two things united, but one only, and in this way God lives and reigns in us, and the soul annihilates itself in operative being”².

Adoption³ is the assumption of a person outside the family to the rights of a natural son (specifically to the right of inheritance). A person outside is one who is not a natural son. Since of themselves these rights belong to no one but a natural son, adoptive assumption of itself says something not due to the adopted person, something gratuitous. In justification, therefore, there is gratuitously communicated by God to the sinner a right to the divine inheritance, so that that man is truly an adoptive son; but that son does not succeed to the goods of a Father who has died, but in his own time will share these goods with the Father. Since in adoption as it takes place among men the adopter and the adopted are already of the same nature, in divine adoption God the adopter communicates his own nature⁴. Yet formally “to communicate the divine nature” and “to adopt” do not say the same thing. That communication of the divine nature without adoption can be had, indeed in fact is had in Christ the man. But where divine adoption is had, there the divine nature is also communicated. To the question whether divine adoption without the communication of the divine nature can be found at least in another order, it can be answered that no repugnance appears in God's willing to confer on a wayfaring man the right to the heavenly inheritance without communicating to him even in this life the divine nature; in the other life, however, he must confer that without which man could not enter into the inheritance, that is, without which he could not see God intuitively.

The thesis, insofar as it affirms a special consortium of the divine nature and adoption itself, although no explicit definition of this matter is had in its own right, must be said to be taught so clearly in Sacred Scripture and Tradition that it is simply of faith.

THE DOCUMENTS OF THE CHURCH

CONC. TRID. ses. 6, cap. 4, justification is described as “the translation from that state in which man is born a son of the first Adam into the state of grace and of the adoption of sons”⁵. Ch. 7: “that he may be an heir according to the hope of eternal life”⁶. Sess. 5, can. 5: the reborn “have been made beloved sons of God, heirs indeed of God, but co-heirs of Christ”⁷.

Pius V condemned the error of Baius, 42: “The justice by which the ungodly is justified through faith... does not (consist) in any grace of the soul infused, by which man is adopted as a son of God and renewed according to the inner man and made a partaker of the divine nature...”⁸

SACRED SCRIPTURE

Adoptive filiation: the use of the word “sons” alone does not of itself prove the matter; indeed the very term “adoption of sons” in Rom 9, 4 is applied to the Israelite people, and must be explained there in a theocratic sense. But of individuals adoption is spoken only in the strict sense; for this adoption, according to St Paul, includes the right of inheritance together with the natural Son of God. Rom 8, 12-18: Christians have received “the spirit of adoption of sons, in whom we cry: Abba (Father)” (v. 15). Of this filiation the Spirit himself gives testimony to our spirit (v. 16).

“But if sons, also heirs: heirs indeed of God, but co-heirs of Christ” (v. 17). But the condition of actually acquiring this inheritance is: “if nevertheless we suffer with (Christ), that we may be glorified with (Christ)” (v. 17). To this glorification belongs in a special way the glory of the body to be communicated in the resurrection. The revelation of the sons of God is still awaited; so the sons of God themselves also still await what pertains to the perfect effect of this filiation, the glorification of the body. In this sense the Apostle says: “And we ourselves also, having the first-fruits of the Spirit: even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body” (v. 23). — In a similar way the same doctrine is set out in Gal 4, 4-7: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father. Therefore now he is not a servant but a son: and if a son, an heir also through God”. Cf. Eph 1, 5.

Generation: these sons are begotten, are born, of God. Io 1, 12. 13: “he gave them power to become the sons of God, to those... who were born of God”. This St John repeats several times in his first epistle: 1 Io 2, 29; 3, 9; 4, 7; 5, 1. 18. Similarly 1 Petr 1, 3. 23; Iac 1, 18; baptism is the laver of regeneration, Tit 3, 5; cf. Io 3, 5. The same is contained in the use of the phrase τέκνα θεοῦ, both in St John (Io 1, 12; 1 Io 3, 1. 2; 5, 2) and in St Paul (Rom 8, 16. 17. 21; 9, 8; Eph 5, 1). Thus Christ is the first-born among many brethren (Rom 8, 29). Therefore when God makes men his sons, he not only confers certain rights on them, but he begets the sons whom he adopts, that is, he communicates a new life to them, he confers his own nature on them in some special way (for this is to beget), so that they now lead a divine life.

Consortium of the divine nature: this communication of the divine nature is explicitly taught in 2 Petr 1, 4: “by whom he has given us the greatest and most precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature”. These things, if they are considered together with the rest of the doctrine of the New Testament, are easily understood of a communication of the divine nature already made to these wayfarers on earth (not of something still to come), and that physical and real, not merely moral in the sense that we should become conformed to God through good acts. And the text itself not only admits this explanation but altogether suggests and urges it.

THE FATHERS

Adoptive filiation⁹: CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: “Baptized, we are enlightened; enlightened, we are adopted as sons; adopted, we are perfected; perfected, we are made immortal: I, he says, said: you are gods and all sons of the Most High”¹⁰. ST ATHANASIUS: “This is the benignity of God, that those whose maker he is should afterwards become also their father by grace: which comes about when men, once created, as the Apostle says, receive in their hearts the Spirit of his Son crying: Abba, Father. These are they who, having received the Word, have received from him power to become sons of God. Nor can they become sons in any other way, since by their own nature they are creatures, unless they receive his Spirit who is the natural and true Son. That this might come about, the Word was made flesh, that he might make man fit to receive the divinity”¹¹.

ST CYRIL OF JERUSALEM: “If you too have sincere piety, the Holy Spirit descends also into you, and the paternal voice resounds to you from above: not ‘this is my Son’, but ‘this is now become my Son’. For to him alone ‘is’ befits, since in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word; to him ‘is’ befits, because he is always the Son of God; for you it has now become, because you have not the name of son by nature but receive it by adoption”¹². ST BASIL: “Through the Holy Spirit is given the restoration to paradise, the ascent to the kingdom of heaven, the return to the adoption of sons”¹³. ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM: “The Son, the genuine Son of God, who exists without beginning, suffered to hear himself called the son of David, that he might make you a son of God; he suffered to have a servant for a father, that he might make the Lord a father to you, a servant. Do you see, from the very beginning, what the Gospels are? But if you doubt about your own affairs, be led to believe these things from those which pertain to him. For it is far more difficult, as far as pertains to the human intellect, that God should become man, than that man should be a son of God. When therefore you hear that the Son of God is the son of David and of Abraham, cease now to doubt that you, the son of Adam, are to be a son of God. Nor would he have humbled himself thus in vain and to no purpose, unless he was to exalt us. For he was born according to the flesh, that you might be born according to the spirit; he was born of a woman, that you might cease to be the son of a woman”¹⁴

ST AMBROSE: “Can men then be so loved by God as the Son, in whom the Father was well pleased? He is well pleasing through himself, we through him; for those in whom God beholds his Son according to his image, them he adopts through the Son into the grace of sons, so that, as through the image we are brought to the image, so through the generation of the Son we may be called to adoption. One love, then, is that of nature, eternal; another that of grace”¹⁵

ST AUGUSTINE: “This is the grace of the new testament, which lay hidden in the old, nor yet did it cease to be foretold and announced by shadowing figures, that the soul may know its God and be reborn to him by his grace. For this birth is spiritual, therefore not of bloods, not of the will of man, but of God. This is also called adoption. For we were something before we were sons of God, and we received the benefit of becoming what we were not: as he who is adopted was not yet, before he was adopted, the son of him by whom he is adopted, yet was already one who could be adopted. And from this generation of grace that Son is distinguished, who, when he was the Son of God, came that he might become the son of man, and might grant to us, who were sons of man, to become sons of God”¹⁶. “The only Son of God by nature was made, for us, by mercy the son of man, that we, sons of man by nature, might by him become sons of God by grace... For as through one man sinning we came into so grave an evil, so through one man, and him God, justifying, we shall come to that good so sublime”¹⁷. “It is clear, then, that he called men gods, deified by his grace, not born of his substance. For he justifies who is just through himself, not through another; and he deifies who is God through himself, not by participation in another. But he who justifies, he it is who deifies, because by justifying he makes sons of God. For he gave them power to become sons of God. If we have been made sons of God, we have also been made gods; but this is the work of grace adopting, not of nature begetting”¹⁸

ST CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: “We ascend, then, to a supernatural dignity through Christ; but we shall not be sons of God as he is, without distinction, but by the grace by which we imitate him; for he is the genuine Son existing from the Father, but we are adopted sons by his benignity, receiving this as a grace: I said: you are gods and all sons of the Most High. For the created and servile creature is called to supernatural things by the mere nod and will of the Father; but the Son, God and Lord, has the ground of his being God and Son not by a decree of God and the Father, nor only because he willed it, but shining forth from the very substance of the Father, he receives by nature the good proper to his substance”¹⁹

Consortium of the divine nature. ST ATHANASIUS: “We are all said similarly to be partakers through the Spirit of God... If, then, by the communication of the Spirit we are made partakers of the divine nature, no one surely but a madman would say that the Spirit is not of God but of a created nature”²⁰. ST AMBROSE: “Who would dare to say that the Holy Spirit is separated from God the Father and from Christ, when through him we merit to be according to the image and likeness of God, and through him it comes about, as the Apostle Peter said, that we are partakers of the divine nature”²¹. ST CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: “If (the Spirit) is neither God by nature, nor his own Spirit from God and therefore substantially existing in him, but is different from him and not remote from the nature of created things, how are we, who are born through him, said to be born of God? For either we shall confess that the evangelist plainly lied, or, if he is truthful and so it is and not otherwise, the Spirit will be God and from God according to nature; by participation in whom, being endowed through faith in Christ, we are both made partakers of the divine nature, and are said to be born of God, and are therefore called gods, not only raised by grace to supernal glory, but now having God dwelling and abiding in us, according to that word of the prophet: I will dwell in them and walk among them”²². ST LEO THE GREAT: “Acknowledge, O Christian, your dignity: and, made a partaker of the divine nature, do not return by a degenerate manner of life to your former vileness”²³.

There can be added from the liturgy: in the preface of the Holy Spirit: “he poured forth the promised Holy Spirit into the sons of adoption”. In the Mass, when water is mixed with the wine: “grant us, through the mystery of this water and wine, to be partakers of his divinity, who deigned to become a partaker of our humanity”.

THE THEOLOGIANS

That the theologians agree in the matter, which is contained so clearly in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, is clear. But in the further explanation of the consortium of the divine nature and of adoptive filiation not all think exactly the same; but these things, as has already been said above, must be set out later (in the third section). From what has been brought forward from Sacred Scripture and from the holy Fathers, it already appears that the communication of the divine nature cannot be reduced to a mere metaphor, or to a moral participation which would consist only in this, that the justified man ought to render himself conformed by good acts to God, who by his nature works only what is good and holy; but without doubt there must be asserted a physical participation of the divine nature, which consists at least in part in a certain special assimilation to God, or likeness with God. For this is an idea so frequent among the holy Fathers in this matter, and recurring again and again among the theologians, that it cannot be passed over in oblivion in explaining the participation of the divine nature. But what this likeness is, and whether the whole participation of the divine nature is contained in it alone, must be explained later.

On the gifts conferred in justification

Justification, according to what has been said, is not something merely external to the justified man, but truly internal: the justified man is inwardly just. The question now is how in the concrete this internal renewal of the sinner is obtained, and what and of what kind are the gifts that are conferred in the justification of the sinner. In this thesis we affirm that some created gift is conferred. “Created” is said here only in opposition to “uncreated”; therefore by this word we say nothing in the thesis itself about the mode by which that being arises, whether by creation properly so called or by eduction; but only: not uncreated. But we in no way deny that the uncreated gift is given in justification; indeed we shall establish this explicitly later; in this thesis, then, it is only positively affirmed that a created gift is given.

The opposite view is attributed to Peter Lombard, who held charity not to be a created infused virtue but the Holy Spirit himself. If moreover he taught that charity and “sanctifying grace” are identical, or if what other theologians attribute to that created being of which the thesis speaks he attributes to charity, that is, to the Holy Spirit, then we have an adversary of our assertion¹.

We say that this created being is physically permanent, that is, it is not an actual gift (e.g. an act of charity) which perseveres morally (in the same way as, after an act of sin, a man remains a “sinner”); but this being itself remains in the physical order, whether the operation of the justified man is present or not. This being is an accident, and indeed of the genus of quality; so all theologians now hold. They affirm, therefore, that in justification there is infused by God into the soul of the sinner a physical accident, a quality, which, since it makes the sinful man holy, is called sanctifying grace, and since it is conceived to be after the manner of a habit, is also called habitual grace.

Morinus, investigating historically the various opinions on the effect of sacramental absolution, says of that opinion “which attributes (to absolution) the infusion of habitual grace, that it is the most recent of all: for scarcely before the year 1200 did the Schools begin to dispute about the habits of grace. Therefore none of the most ancient Scholastics, whether when they dispute about the effect of contrition or about the power of the sacraments, makes express mention of infused habits”². “The Scholastics by disputing attained only this, that the grace by which the sinner is justified is a habit infused by God into the soul. Many doctors cried out against these habits, and long the battle was fought with equal fortune; but at length, around the year 1240, all that dispute cooled down, and all the Doctors agreed in the positing of habits. Meanwhile many great men, some of whom we shall report in chapter 7, have contended down to this very day that, although in fact the justification of the ungodly comes about through an infused habit, it can nevertheless come about without it through acts elicited by the will with the help of the Holy Spirit without a new habit”³. Then in ch. 7 he sets before the reader's eyes “the opinion of the most celebrated Scholastics in this matter, to which he may safely assent”. The authors he brings forward are: Dominic Soto, Melchior Cano, Bartholomew Medina, Ruard Tapper, John Vincent, Thomas Stapleton, Albert Pighius, Louis Molina, Gabriel Vázquez, who at least affirm that the matter has not been defined by the Church.

It is true that Sacred Scripture does not speak explicitly of infused qualities or habits, nor do the holy Fathers employ those terms when they speak of justification. But the Scholastics applied philosophical concepts to the explanation of this matter too, which in the time of the Fathers had already been done in other doctrines (cf. the treatise on the Trinity, on the Word Incarnate). Thus, however, the doctrine itself is not changed, but the same doctrine is presented in another way. In fact, within a short time the Scholastics agreed on this, that in the justification of adults grace and the virtues are infused as to habit. Yet they still disputed whether the same must be said also of the justification of infants. But after the Council of Vienne chose the affirmative opinion as more probable, this dispute too seems to have ceased⁴

How far anything has been defined by the Council of Trent in this matter is disputed. From the history of the council itself it would seem that one must say that the council understood a physically permanent created being⁵; hence the thesis would have to be called defined faith. Yet several theologians either deny the definition or doubt it; but at least the thesis must be called theologically certain. Thus, however, it is not affirmed that it is established with the same certainty that that created gift, physically permanent, is precisely a “quality” or a “habit”.

THE DOCUMENTS OF THE CHURCH

INNOCENT III, in the letter “Maiores”, reports, without deciding, two opinions about the effect of the baptism of infants: one which says that guilt indeed is remitted but grace is not conferred, the other which affirms both⁶. It is supposed that in adults both guilt is remitted and grace infused, since this was denied to little ones by some precisely for this reason, that they did not consent to this infusion.

CONC. VIENNENSE: “But because, as regards the effect of baptism in little ones, certain doctors of theology are found to have held contrary opinions... We, however, attending to the general efficacy of the death of Christ, which is applied through baptism equally to all the baptized, have judged the second opinion, which says that both to little ones and to adults there is conferred in baptism informing grace and the virtues, to be chosen as more probable, and more consonant and agreeable to the sayings of the Saints and to the theology of the modern doctors, with the sacred Council approving”⁷. Here too it is openly supposed that grace is infused into adults, since the reason is introduced: the efficacy of the death of Christ is applied through baptism equally to all the baptized (adults and infants).

CONC. TRID. 1) A created being: Sess. 6 cap. 7: “we are truly named and are just, receiving justice in ourselves, each one his own, according to the measure which the Holy Spirit divides to each as he wills, and according to each one's own disposition and cooperation”⁸. Can. 11: “If anyone says that men are justified... to the exclusion of grace and charity, which is poured forth into their hearts by the Holy Spirit and inheres in them... let him be anathema”⁹. Therefore something distinct from the Holy Spirit himself. 2) A physically permanent being: this is had from the history of the council and from the use of the term “to inhere”, as it was understood in the council (cap. 7 and can. 11)¹⁰.

Pius V condemned prop. 42 of Baius: “The justice... does not (consist) in any grace of the soul infused...”¹¹.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

1. A physically permanent being. From what has so far been brought forward from Sacred Scripture it is clear that men in justification are regenerated, that a new life, a new nature is communicated to them, whence they are sons of God, and that they are a new creature; but all these things cannot signify a merely new moral condition, nor only a transient physical act, but a physical principle permanently in the just man himself.

2. A created being. This new nature is not the Holy Spirit himself. For St Paul calls it, as an effect of the Holy Spirit, a spirit (πνεῦμα), and distinguishes it from the Holy Spirit himself, Rom 8, 16¹². To this can also be referred Eph 1, 13: “in whom you also, believing, were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise”; Eph 4, 30: “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God: in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption”.

THE FATHERS

ST IRENAEUS: “And again, men who are unfruitful in justice and, as it were, wrapped round with thorns, if they receive diligence and, as it were, by an insertion receive the word of God, come back to the pristine nature of man, that which was made according to the image and likeness of God. But just as the wild olive, when grafted, does not indeed lose the substance of the wood, but changes the quality of its fruit and receives another name, being now called no longer a wild olive but a fruitful olive: so too man, grafted through faith and taking up the Spirit of God, does not indeed lose the substance of the flesh, but changes the quality of the fruit of his works and receives another name, signifying that transmutation which is for the better; he is now called no longer flesh and blood, but a spiritual man”¹³. ORIGEN: “But also, since many of the saints partake of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit cannot possibly be understood as a body, which each of the saints would receive divided into bodily parts; but he is truly a sanctifying power, of which all are said to have a part who have merited to be sanctified by his grace”¹⁴. ST CYPRIAN: “Buy yourself a white garment, that you, who according to Adam were naked and before were foul and unsightly, may be clothed with the white raiment of Christ”¹⁵. ST AMBROSE: “We are therefore sealed by God with the Spirit. For as we die in Christ that we may be reborn, so also we are signed with the Spirit that we may be able to hold his splendour and image and grace; which is surely a spiritual seal. For although we are signed in the body in appearance, yet in truth we are signed in the heart, that the Holy Spirit may express in us the likeness of the heavenly image”¹⁶. “Whether then justification seems to you to be conferred according to the body or according to the soul, I ask you to answer. But you cannot doubt, since justice, from which justification is derived, is surely of the mind, not of the body. You have been painted, then, O man, painted by the Lord your God. You have a good artist and painter. Do not destroy the good picture, shining not with pigment but with truth, expressed not in wax but in grace”¹⁷. ST AUGUSTINE: “The justice of God has been manifested; he did not say: the justice of man, or the justice of one's own will; but: the justice of God, not that by which God is just, but that with which he clothes man when he justifies the ungodly”¹⁸. “Nor let it disturb us that he said that they naturally do the things of the law, not by the Spirit of God, not by faith, not by grace. For this is what the Spirit of grace does, that he restores in us the image of God, in which we were made by nature”¹⁹. ST CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: “Sin therefore has been condemned, put to death first in Christ, to be put to death also in us, when we receive him in our own souls through faith and the communication of the Spirit, who perfects us into the form of Christ, namely through the quality of sanctification. For the Spirit of our Saviour Christ is, as it were, his form, imprinting in us in some way through himself the divine figure”²⁰. “If, sealed by the Holy Spirit, we are reformed unto God, how shall that be created by which the image of the divine substance is imprinted on us and the marks of the uncreated nature inhere in us? For the Spirit does not, after the manner of a painter, paint the divine substance in us, as though he himself were alien to it; nor does he lead us to the likeness of God in this way; but he himself, who is God and proceeds from God, is invisibly imprinted in the hearts of those who receive him, as a seal on wax, repainting nature to the beauty of the exemplar through his own communication and likeness, and restoring to man the image of God”²¹. “Christ is formed in us, the Holy Spirit bringing into us a certain divine form through sanctification and justice. For thus, thus does the character of the substance of God and of the Father shine in our souls, the Holy Spirit, as I said, reforming us through sanctification into himself”²²

THE THEOLOGIANS

As has already been said, the theologians are entirely agreed on the fact; they dispute about the qualification of the thesis, or even about those things which could absolutely come about. St Thomas sets out the matter in 1, 2 q. 110 a. 1 (Whether grace puts something in the soul), and a. 2 (Whether grace is a quality), and answers both affirmatively.

If it is asked whether this created being, physically permanent, sanctifying grace, is really distinct from the soul, one must answer affirmatively; and so almost all theologians, with very few exceptions²³. Although perhaps it is not necessary to affirm that every real accidental change of a substance requires an accident really distinct from the substance²⁴, yet this cannot be denied, if the real change is such as to bring with it a new and greater perfection. In the present case, however, the matter is not as though the same perfection previously existing had only another mode of being, but a truly new and greater perfection supervenes, which the positive arguments prove. Therefore sanctifying grace must altogether be called really distinct from the soul. The opposite opinion is perhaps to be explained from the fact that it conceives an accident after the manner of a most subtle substance; but St Thomas rightly says: “As Boethius says, the being of an accident is to be in something; whence every accident is not said to be a being as though it had being itself, but because by it something is; whence also it is said to be rather of a being than a being, as is said in 7 Metaph.”. And in what follows he touches the question how grace arises: “and because it belongs to that whose being it is to come to be or to be corrupted, therefore, properly speaking, no accident either comes to be or is corrupted; but it is said to come to be or to be corrupted according as the subject begins or ceases to be in act according to that accident: and according to this grace too is said to be created, from the fact that men are created according to it, that is, are constituted in a new being out of nothing, that is, not from merits, according to that word to the Ephesians 2: Created in Christ Jesus in good works”²⁵. And elsewhere: “Grace, since it is not a subsistent form, neither to be nor to come to be belongs to it properly of itself: whence it is not properly created in that mode by which substances subsisting of themselves are created. Yet the infusion of grace approaches to the nature of creation insofar as grace has no cause in the subject, neither efficient, nor such a material in which it is in potency in such a way that it could be led into act by a natural agent, as is the case with other natural forms”²⁶.

For the objections against the thesis see Beraza nr. 730 ss.; and 743 s., which however are easily solved by attending to this, 1) that we do not deny that the Holy Spirit is also given; 2) that the question is not what is absolutely possible, or what God perhaps could have done, but what in fact is the case in the present order.

In justification, besides sanctifying grace, the virtues of faith, hope and charity are infused. These virtues are, like sanctifying grace, entities physically permanent, qualities, “infused habits”. Now since acquired natural habits presuppose a power and confer on the subject both an inclination to act and an easier power, the infused virtues, habits infused by God, give the very power together with some inclination to act¹. These habits are immediately seated in the powers of the soul: faith in the intellect, hope and charity in the will. Faith and hope can remain in a man after sin, in whom sanctifying grace is no longer present; whence it is clear that they are really distinct from sanctifying grace. Sanctifying grace, however, and charity are either both present or both absent; they are never so separated that one is present in the soul without the other. Hence the question is rightly asked whether sanctifying grace and charity are really identical. On this matter there is controversy among theologians. The real distinction is denied by Scotus and the Scotists, Durandus, Catharinus, Lainez, Salmerón, Bellarmine, Lessius; it is affirmed by St Thomas, Suárez, Gregory of Valencia, Tanner, Ripalda, and this opinion is now altogether the more common. All, however, concede that their opinion does not exceed probability.

If grace and charity are identical, grace has the will for its immediate subject, and therefore perfects the will immediately, and is consequently a habit proximately operative. Those, however, who say that grace and charity are really distinct hold the very substance of the soul as the immediate subject of grace, and grace is not a habit immediately operative but, as is commonly said, an entitative habit, or substantial habit, immediately perfecting the very substance of the soul, the nature of the soul. Just as in the order of natural generation nature is communicated together with the powers by which the subject is apt to elicit acts in the order corresponding to that nature, so in this opinion, in regeneration, nature is communicated, namely sanctifying grace itself, together with the powers for acts corresponding to the order of this new nature, the infused virtues. From this it appears that this question can be raised not only by those who hold that the powers of the soul are really distinct from its substance, but also by those who would deny such a distinction. For if grace and charity are identical, they attribute the same perfection to the soul; but if they are really distinct, grace and charity confer one perfection and another.

The question cannot be decided from Sacred Scripture, nor from the Fathers, nor from the councils². But the reasoning of St Thomas³ makes the opinion affirming the real distinction altogether more probable, and it adds weight that this opinion is now the more common.

Pesch⁴ expounds this reasoning as follows: “Nature is prior to the habits perfecting nature; the principle by which a thing is constituted in being is prior to that by which it is proximately disposed to act. But charity is an operative habit disposing man to love God supernaturally. Therefore it presupposes a higher nature already given, which is given through sanctifying grace. It must not indeed be forgotten that the names of habits and of nature are to be applied to the natural and the supernatural order not univocally but analogically; for grace too, which gives the higher nature, is an accident perfecting the natural essence, and the supernatural habits are other accidents which give not facility but the power of acting supernaturally; whence it can even happen that operative accidents exist in a subject in which grace is lacking, as is clear of faith and hope, because they are not in sanctifying grace as in their subject but in the natural powers. Nor therefore is the argument to be conceived as though, from the physical nature of things, the supernatural habits no less presuppose grace than the natural powers and habits presuppose nature. The force of the argument is rather moral, because it does not befit the divine wisdom to infuse supernatural operative accidents before it has given man a supernatural nature, if one may so speak. For man ought to be a friend of God before he acts as a friend of God”.

The uncreated gift is God himself, a being from himself. The thesis therefore affirms that God gives himself in the justification of the sinner, and remains in him and dwells in him. God, then, is present in the justified man in a new and special way. If God becomes present somewhere in such a way that he was not present there before, some change must have taken place; and since this cannot be in God, it must be found in the creature. In our case this change is the infusion of sanctifying grace. That, then, is the foundation of the relation of God's presence in the soul. This presence is predicated in a special way of the Holy Spirit himself. In the treatise on the Trinity it is shown, according to the more common opinion and against Petavius, that what is at issue here is an appropriation¹. Therefore the three divine persons give themselves as a gift in justification. This “becoming present” in the soul of the just man is, on the part of all three persons, a “coming”: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit “come” into the soul of the just man; on the part of the second and third persons it has also the character of a mission (invisible mission).

The indwelling of God in the just man is a certain union of God with the just man. The term of this union is not a substantial unity, and hence the union itself must be called accidental; but the terms which are thus accidentally united are substances. Therefore what is at issue is not a merely dynamic presence of God, the presence of his power, but the divine substance itself is present, and in this sense the very presence of God in the just man is substantial.

If the Fathers, especially in the controversy with the Nestorians, insist in a special way that the union of the divine and human nature in Christ is physical, not only according to relation, as in the just, in whom God dwells as in his own temple, they did not wish to deny that the union of God with the just is real, existing objectively in the ontological order, as is clear from their words². This union, therefore, is not merely moral in the sense that the just man renders his will conformable to the divine will, or that God loves him with a special love, but it is an ontological, real union, which in its own way could even be called physical.

The thesis treats of what takes place in the justification of the sinner; therefore not of that bestowal of the Holy Spirit which is the proper effect of certain sacraments of the living, nor directly of the second justification, that is, of the increase of justice.

The mere fact itself, that God is present in the just man in a way in which he is not present in the sinner, is contained so clearly in the sources of revelation that it must be said to be of faith; nor is there any controversy about this matter, at least if the just of the New Testament are considered. Petavius, however,³ wished to restrict this indwelling to the just of the New Testament alone, so that in the just of the Old Testament the Holy Spirit did not dwell substantially; whence in his account of the formal cause of adoption he had to deny that the just of the Old Testament were truly adopted sons of God. This opinion, however, is rejected by almost all theologians, and rightly so: “because adoption and justification are inseparably linked, and because, since the just of the Old Testament had sanctifying grace and were friends of God, nothing was lacking of what indwelling requires. Wherefore Leo XIII in the encyclical ‘Divinum illud’ says: ‘It is certain that in those very just men who lived before Christ, the Holy Spirit dwelt by grace’ (Acta S. Sedis XXIX, 1897; 651). In three respects, however, indwelling belongs to the New Testament more than to the Old: a) The Old Testament, precisely as it is understood as the Mosaic law, was a prefiguring of grace, not a bestowal of it. But all the grace that was granted in the Old Testament was given in view of the merits of Christ. Insofar, therefore, as the sanctifying grace even of the Old Testament was in some way an anticipated effect of the death of Christ, to that extent all sanctification belongs to the New Testament; and since sanctification is indwelling, this too is a property of the new law, not of the Sinaitic economy. b) In the Old Testament grace was not given with as great a largess as in the New Testament... c) Never before the day of Pentecost was the Holy Spirit sent with so great an array of external signs and of the greatest miracles...”⁴. J. H. Oswald advanced a singular opinion, affirming that the substantial indwelling of the Holy Spirit is had only through confirmation, and that through baptism there is only a dynamic indwelling⁵.

On the very difficult question of how the indwelling of God in the just man is to be explained and conceived, the opinions of theologians vary. Galtier notes very well that in treating this matter one must proceed from those things which the sources positively hand down, and take them as one's foundation. Theologians further dispute about the relation between created and uncreated grace, and about what in justification is to be attributed to created and what to uncreated grace. On this question, however, we must speak in the third section.

THE DOCUMENTS OF THE CHURCH

The documents of the Church are not so numerous in which this truth is stated directly and on its own account; for the most part it is presupposed.

The Creed of Epiphanius: “We believe also in the Holy Spirit, who spoke in the law, and preached through the prophets, and descended at the Jordan, spoke in the apostles, and dwells in the saints”⁶.

Conc. Trid., sess. 6, cap. 7: “signing and anointing with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance”⁷. Sess. 14, cap. 4 teaches that imperfect contrition is “a gift of God and an impulse of the Holy Spirit, not indeed as yet dwelling in us, but only moving us”⁸. Cap. 8, on the necessity and fruit of satisfaction: “Indeed the nature of divine justice also seems to demand that those be received into grace by him on one footing who sinned before baptism through ignorance; and on another, who, once freed from the slavery of sin and of the devil, and having received the gift of the Holy Spirit, did not fear knowingly to violate the temple of God and to grieve the Holy Spirit”⁹. St Pius V condemned the 13th proposition of Baius: “Good works done by the sons of adoption do not receive the character of merit from the fact that they are done through the spirit of adoption dwelling in the hearts of the sons of God, but...”. Proposition 15: “The character of merit does not consist in this, that he who acts well has grace and the indwelling Holy Spirit, but only in this, that he obeys the divine law”¹⁰.

Leo XIII in the encyclical “Divinum illud” of 9 May 1897 treats this matter at length. “The beginnings of this regeneration and renewal are given to man through baptism: in which sacrament, the unclean spirit being driven out of the soul, the Holy Spirit first enters in, and makes it like to himself: That which is born of the Spirit is spirit¹¹. And more abundantly through sacred confirmation, for the constancy and strength of the Christian life, the same Spirit gives himself as a gift; from whom, surely, came the victory of the martyrs and the triumph of virgins over the allurements of corruption. He gives himself, we say, as a gift, the Holy Spirit; The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us¹². For he not only brings us divine gifts, but is himself their author, and is himself also the supreme gift; who, proceeding from the mutual love of the Father and the Son, is rightly held and named the gift of the most high God. — That the nature and power of this gift may appear more clearly, we must recall what the sacred doctors have explained as handed down in the divine letters: that God is present to all things and is in them, by power, inasmuch as all things are subject to his power; by presence, inasmuch as all things are naked and open to his eyes; by essence, inasmuch as he is present to all things as the cause of being¹³. But God is in man not only as he is in things, but is further known and loved by him; since even under the guidance of nature we spontaneously love, desire and seek the good. Moreover, God by grace dwells in the just soul as in a temple, in a manner wholly intimate and singular; from which there follows also that bond of charity by which the soul cleaves most closely to God, more than a friend could to a friend most benevolent and beloved, and enjoys him fully and sweetly. — But this wonderful conjunction, which by its own name is called indwelling, differing only in condition or state from that by which God embraces the blessed in making them happy, although it is most truly brought about by the present majesty of the whole Trinity, we shall come to him and make our abode with him¹⁴, yet it is predicated of the Holy Spirit as something peculiar. For indeed traces of the divine power and wisdom appear even in the wicked man; but of charity, which is as it were the proper mark of the Spirit, no one is a partaker except the just man. And with this it coheres that the same Spirit is named Holy, also for the reason that he, the first and supreme Love, moves and leads souls to holiness, which is finally contained in the love of God. Wherefore when the Apostle calls the just the temple of God, he does not expressly call them the temple of the Father or of the Son, but of the Holy Spirit: Know you not that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God?¹⁵ — Upon the Holy Spirit dwelling in pious souls there follows in many ways an abundance of heavenly gifts”¹⁶.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

Io 14, 23: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him”. — Rom 5, 5: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us”. 8, 9 ff.: “But you are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit liveth because of justification. And if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies, because of his Spirit that dwelleth in you”. — 1 Cor 3, 16 f.: “Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which you are”. 6, 19: “Know you not that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body”. — 2 Cor 1, 21 f.: “Now he who confirmeth us with you in Christ, and he who hath anointed us, is God: who also hath sealed us and given the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts”. 6, 16: “And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God”. — Gal 4, 6: “And because you are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father”. — Eph 1, 13 ff.: “In whom you also, when you had heard the word of truth (the Gospel of your salvation), in whom also believing, you were signed with the holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance, unto the redemption of acquisition, unto the praise of his glory”. 4, 30 “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God: in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption”. 5, 18: “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is luxury: but be ye filled with the holy Spirit”. — 1 Thess 4, 8: “who (God) also hath given his holy Spirit in us”.

THE FATHERS

Many things are already found in those which have been brought forward in the preceding theses¹⁷. THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS: “But it shall be built in the name of the Lord: take heed that the temple of the Lord be built gloriously. How? Learn. Having received the remission of sins and having hope in the name of the Lord, we have become new, created again from the beginning; wherefore in us, in our dwelling, God truly dwells”¹⁸. ST IRENAEUS: “For this (the Holy Spirit) he promised through the prophets to pour out in the last times upon servants and handmaids, that they might prophesy; whence he also descended upon the Son of God, made son of man, dwelling with him and accustoming himself to dwell in the human race, and to rest in men, and to dwell in the handiwork of God, working in them the will of the Father, and renewing them from the oldness into the newness of Christ”¹⁹. “Perfect therefore are those who have the Spirit of God persevering in them and have kept their souls and bodies without complaint; keeping the things of God, that is, that faith which is towards God, and guarding that justice which is towards the neighbour. Whence also he says that the handiwork is the temple of God: Know you not, he says, that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which you are; plainly calling the body the temple, in which the Spirit dwells”²⁰. NOVATIAN: “This is he (the Holy Spirit) who works from the waters the second birth, a certain seed of the divine race, and the consecrator of the heavenly birth, the pledge of the promised inheritance and as it were a kind of bond of eternal salvation; who makes us the temple of God and makes us his house; who intercedes with the divine ears for us with unutterable groanings, fulfilling the offices of advocacy and discharging the duties of defence; given as an inhabitant to our bodies and the worker of holiness”²¹. DIDYMUS OF ALEXANDRIA: “A creature cannot be participated substantially by the rational soul so as to dwell in it; for it is proper to God alone to be so participated. But the Holy Spirit exists as substantially participable as the Father and the Son, as has been said in the first discourse. For even as the Father dwells in those who are worthy, what is necessary, unless that through the unity of the divine nature and its fullness towards us, both the Son and the Holy Spirit come together and concur? Surely no one would ever wish to say that a multitude of gods in some way dwells in us, but that one God exists in the unity of the Godhead, three persons”²².

ST AUGUSTINE: “But that is far more wonderful, that whereas God is wholly everywhere, he does not yet dwell in all. For it cannot be said to all what the Apostle says, or what I have already said²³, or even that: Know you not that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?²⁴ Whence also, on the contrary, he says of certain men: But if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his²⁵. Who indeed would dare to think, unless one wholly ignorant of the inseparability of the Trinity, that the Father or the Son could dwell in anyone in whom the Holy Spirit does not dwell, or the Holy Spirit in anyone in whom the Father and the Son are not also? Whence it must be confessed that God is everywhere by the presence of his divinity, but not everywhere by the grace of indwelling. For on account of this indwelling, where the grace of his love is without doubt recognized, we do not say, Our Father who art everywhere, though this also is true, but, Our Father who art in heaven²⁶, that we may rather call to mind in prayer his temple, which we ourselves ought to be, and inasmuch as we are, to that extent we belong to his fellowship and to the family of his adoption... Since therefore he who is everywhere does not dwell in all; even in those in whom he dwells he does not dwell equally. For whence is that which Elisha asked, that the Spirit of God which was in Elijah might be in him doubly?²⁷ And whence is it that among all the saints some are holier than others, unless by possessing the indwelling God more abundantly?²⁸. And therefore it is a very wonderful thing how God is the indweller of some who do not yet know him, and is not the indweller of some who know him. For neither do they belong to the temple of God who, knowing God, did not glorify him as God, or give thanks; and to the temple of God belong little ones sanctified by the sacrament of Christ, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, who surely by reason of age cannot yet know God: whence him whom those could neither know nor have, these could have before they knew. But most blessed are those to whom to have God is the same as to know him: for that knowledge itself is most full, most true, most happy”²⁹. “We say therefore that in baptized little ones, although they do not know it, the Holy Spirit dwells. For they do not know him, though he is in them, just as they do not know their own mind either; whose reason in them, which they cannot yet use, is as it were a certain spark asleep, to be stirred up by the advance of age. Nor ought this seem wonderful in little ones, since the Apostle says even to some who are older: Know you not that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?³⁰ Of such he had said a little before: But the sensual man perceiveth not those things that are of the Spirit of God; whom he also calls little ones, not in the age of the flesh but of the mind³¹. They therefore did not perceive by knowledge the Holy Spirit who dwelt in them; and while the Holy Spirit dwelt in them, they were still sensual, not yet spiritual, because they could not yet perceive by knowledge their indwelling Spirit. But he is said to dwell also in such persons because he works in them secretly, that they may be his temple; and this he perfects in those who make progress and persevere in progressing”³². “The love therefore which is of God and is God is properly the Holy Spirit, through whom the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, through which the whole Trinity dwells in us. Wherefore most rightly the Holy Spirit, since he is God, is also called the Gift of God. And what is that gift properly to be understood as, but charity, which leads to God, and without which any other gift of God whatever does not lead to God?”³³

ST CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: “And why are we called and are temples of God, and gods? Ask the adversaries whether we are in fact partakers of a bare and substance-less grace. But the case is not so: by no means. For we are temples of a Spirit who exists and subsists; and we are called gods on account of him also, especially since we are partakers of his divine and ineffable nature. But if the Spirit who deifies us through himself is truly alien and substantially separated from the divine nature, we have fallen from our hope, shining, I know not how, with empty glory. For how are we at length gods and temples of God, as the Scriptures speak, on account of the Spirit who is in us? For what is not God, how could it give divinity to others? But we are temples and gods; nor indeed is assent to be given to those who are in error. His Spirit, therefore, is not of a substance different from God”.³⁴

THE THEOLOGIANS

The theologians, as was said above, agree on the fact, but they attempt to explain it in different ways.

Sacred Scripture speaks of a certain “remaining” of God in those who love him, and he makes his abode with them; the just are the temple of God, which is said specifically also of the body and its members. We are sealed with the Spirit of God, he is the pledge of our inheritance. Briefly, therefore, it seems that it can be said: it is an indwelling for our sanctification. Similar things are found in the holy Fathers: the Spirit dwelling in us works in us the will of the Father, renews us, intercedes for us, is advocate and defender, the worker of holiness. By participation in him we are joined to God, he makes us spiritual, quickens us, infuses grace, makes us like God, gods. Augustine distinguishes the presence of God by the presence of divinity, by which he is everywhere, and the presence by the grace of indwelling; this is not equal in all, but has different degrees according to the various degrees of sanctity. Some have the knowledge of God, in whom he does not dwell; others have not knowledge, in whom nevertheless he dwells (baptized infants), and this indwelling signifies: he works secretly in them, that they may be his temple, and this he perfects in those who make progress and persevere. All of which again seems able to be summed up thus: he dwells in us, sanctifying us and leading us to eternal life.

In explaining indwelling, most theologians agree that a special presence of God cannot be had except by reason of a special effect in the creature, and that effect is the very infusion of grace or charity. That the procession of the Holy Spirit into men is attended to only by reason of sanctifying grace, St Thomas³⁵ explains from the fact that this procession is attended to “inasmuch as it is the way of returning to the end; and it is only according to those gifts which most closely unite us to the last end, namely God, which are sanctifying grace and glory”. But because this procession includes within itself the giving of the Holy Spirit, “it does not suffice that there be a new relation of the creature to God, of whatever kind it is, but it must be referred to him as to something had; because what is given to anyone is had by him in some way. But a divine person cannot be had by us except either for perfect fruition, and thus it is had through the gift of glory; or according to imperfect fruition, and thus it is had through the gift of sanctifying grace; or rather as that through which we are united to the object of fruition, inasmuch as the divine persons themselves by a kind of sealing of themselves leave in our souls certain gifts by which we formally enjoy them, namely love and wisdom; for which reason the Holy Spirit is said to be the pledge of our inheritance”.

In the Summa contra gentiles³⁶: “It is necessary that wherever there is any effect of God, there God the agent be also. Whence since the charity by which we love God is in us through the Holy Spirit, it is necessary that the Holy Spirit himself also be in us, as long as charity is in us”. In 1 ad Cor. cap. 3, lect. 3: “But it must be considered that God is in all creatures, in which he is by essence, power and presence, filling all things with his goodness, according to that of Hier. 23: I fill heaven and earth. But spiritually God is said to dwell as in a familiar house in the saints, whose mind is capable of God through knowledge and love, even if they themselves do not actually know and love, provided they have through grace the habit of faith and charity, as is clear of baptized children. And knowledge without love does not suffice for the indwelling of God, according to that of 1 Io 4: He who abides in charity abides in God, and God in him. Hence it is that many know God, either by natural knowledge or by unformed faith, in whom nevertheless the Spirit of God does not dwell”. In 2 ad Cor. cap. 6 lect. 3: “I will dwell in them, namely in the saints, cultivating them by grace; although God is said to be in all things by presence, power and essence, he is not nevertheless said to dwell in them, but only in the saints by grace. The reason of which is that God is in all things by his action inasmuch as he joins himself to them as giving being and preserving them in being. But in the saints he is by the operation of the saints themselves, by which they attain to God and in some way comprehend him, which is to love and to know. For one who loves and knows is said to have in himself the things known and loved”.

Summa Theol. 1 q. 43 a. 3 asks: “Whether the invisible mission of a divine person is only according to the gift of sanctifying grace”, and answers: “It befits a divine person to be sent inasmuch as it exists in someone in a new way; but to be given, inasmuch as it is had by someone; and neither of these is except according to sanctifying grace. For there is one common way in which God is in all things by essence, power and presence, as the cause in the effects partaking of his goodness. But over and above this common way there is one special way, which befits the rational creature, in which God is said to be as the known in the knower and the loved in the lover. And because by knowing and loving the rational creature by its own operation attains to God himself, according to this special way God is said not only to be in the rational creature, but also to dwell in it as in his temple. Thus therefore no other effect can be the reason that a divine person is in the rational creature in a new way, except sanctifying grace. Whence a divine person is sent and proceeds temporally only according to sanctifying grace. Similarly we are said to have only that which we can freely use or enjoy. But to have the power of enjoying a divine person is only according to sanctifying grace. But yet in the very gift of sanctifying grace the Holy Spirit is had, and dwells in man. Whence the Holy Spirit himself is given and sent”.

From these words of St Thomas some have attempted to explain the indwelling of God precisely from the fact that God is in the just man as the known in the knower and the loved in the lover³⁷.

It must be confessed that such an explanation is scarcely founded on what Scripture and the Fathers say about indwelling. For according to them, indwelling is had by the very fact that man is regenerated, that the divine nature is communicated to him, that he is sanctified, consecrated: that is, by the very infusion of sanctifying grace. Nor does it appear how the known as such in the knower, the loved as such in the lover, is substantially present³⁸. Moreover, God dwells also in those who do not know him (baptized infants), nor can it be elicited by habitual knowledge and love through the infused habits of faith and charity; for by these habits habitual knowledge and love are not had, as in an acquired habit; but the infused habits confer the very power. But by the fact that the faculty of knowing is communicated to someone, the object of this knowledge cannot yet be called present to him.

And so Leo XIII, in the words cited above, distinguishes the presence of God in man through knowledge and love from that which is through grace and which is properly called indwelling.

Suárez explains the matter thus: “It seems to me therefore that those who say that the gifts of sanctifying grace are such as by their own force, or by a kind of connatural right, to demand the intimate, real and personal presence of God in the soul sanctified by such gifts, judge with sufficient probability and piety. Which is best declared by this conditional statement. For if we imagine, per impossibile, that the Holy Spirit were not otherwise really present within the soul, by the very fact that the soul were endowed with such gifts the Holy Spirit himself would come to it by a personal presence and would be and remain in it, as long as grace lasted in it. And in this way, although he now otherwise has that presence by reason of his immensity and power, he is rightly said now to have it by a special title by reason of grace and charity, and therefore is rightly said to come or to be sent to the soul by means of these gifts”. And he explains this further: “For by grace and charity a certain most perfect friendship between God and man is established. But friendship of itself seeks union between friends, not only by conformity of affections, but also by inseparable presence and union as far as can be. Whence a most perfect and most spiritual and divine friendship demands by its own right and debt the intimate presence of God in the man whom it thus makes its friend, through a real existence within him by force of such friendship, so that, even if he were not there on another title, this would suffice. But because this union is so much of friendship that it is nevertheless not between those altogether equal, but with due proportion, therefore by its force God remains in man as his protector and ruler, whose care God has, not only on the title of his general providence, but on the peculiar title of friendship. Finally, because in this friendship account must always be had of the divine majesty, therefore by its force the Holy Spirit so remains in man as in a friend to whom he is intimately united, that he remains there at the same time as a friend to be honoured with the highest reverence and veneration, and therefore he remains there present also as in a living temple, which he himself adorns and prepares for himself through created gifts, that he may be adored in it and by it. And certainly this manner of presence and indwelling the sacred letters indicate in the passages cited”³⁹. Thus there is established a certain presence of God, not only as object of knowledge and love (which, as is clear, is not denied), but a real, substantial presence antecedently to and independently of man's knowledge and love, from the very infusion of sanctifying grace. God gives himself to man as a friend by the fact that, infusing sanctifying grace, he makes man his friend. This explanation, which is accepted by quite a few theologians⁴⁰, seems in some way to be contained in the words of Leo XIII related above, and of it can be said what he himself affirms: “it differs only in condition or state from that by which God embraces the blessed in making them happy”.

Vazquez, however, judges this opinion insufficient to explain the special presence of God in the just man. For “these gifts, beyond the common character of an effect of the divine power, have this about them, that they unite us to God according to affection and as a rule to which we are said to be just, or as a friend to whom we are said to be beloved and therefore holy and immaculate: but this effect, which is wholly in affection, or through respect to it, can be between those absent in substance, as is manifest”⁴¹. Someone could reply and say that from the fact that friendship can exist even between the absent it does not follow that God, in establishing this friendship, does not give himself substantially; but by this very fact it already seems to be conceded that the infusion of grace, inasmuch as friendship with God is established by it, cannot give the ultimate explanation of the special indwelling. Of the presence of God as known in the knower Vazquez says: “Concerning this manner of existing there is almost no controversy among the doctors; but it is of such a nature that it would not suffice for God to constitute things by essence, if otherwise he were not in them by his immensity: for this manner unites man with God by knowledge alone, by affection, operation or habit”. He states his own opinion thus: “Although it cannot be denied that the person of the Holy Spirit is given to us by reason of the charisms and sent to us, and that the whole Trinity comes to us... this nevertheless is not said because on account of the mere largess of the gifts he would be in us according to substance, even if otherwise he did not exist there by his immensity, but because, since he is otherwise in us, he deigns to appear in us by a new effect of grace; and since these gifts are appropriated to the Holy Spirit, he too is said to be given and sent to us, and with him the whole Trinity to come”. Yet if one stops at this alone, the explanation given does not yet seem to be of that special presence which is found in indwelling.

Hence Galtier⁴² attempted to show that in the sanctification of man there is not a divine operation such as there is in the other effects of God, but an operation specially and plainly of its own kind, by reason of which a corresponding presence of God, altogether of its own kind, would also have to be asserted. In every effect, indeed, some likeness with its cause is found, and so even in created things there is a certain likeness to God, though a very imperfect one. But now the production of grace tends precisely to a likeness to God, not any likeness whatever, but a special one; for it is a communication of the divine nature, it is a generation which by its nature is unto the likeness of the begetter. This assimilation to God transcends every “assimilation” that is had in the creation of nature and in all natural effects, as much as the supernatural transcends the natural. Consequently the operation which tends to this special assimilation must likewise be called altogether special. And by reason of this plainly singular operation the corresponding presence of God in the soul must also be asserted, and this is indwelling itself. This is the explanation which on the one hand truly corresponds to what the Fathers say about indwelling, and which on the other hand shows the real and special presence of God in all and only the just, of which it can rightly be said: even if God were not present by reason of immensity or on another title, he would yet be present by reason of this operation. This explanation rests on a principle generally admitted, that God “comes” into some creature and is present in it by reason of the divine operation, by which a change is posited in the creature, which is the foundation of the relation of God's presence. Thus this explanation seems to be preferred among those which have been proposed up to now in this difficult and obscure matter⁴³.

Note: At the end of this section something would still have to be said about the supernaturality of the gifts which are conferred in justification; but since these have already been set out at length both in the treatise On the one God and in the treatise On God elevating, they seem to be omitted in this place. There it is shown from the nature of the gifts (participation of the divine nature, adoptive sonship, inheritance of eternal life) that those gifts are absolutely supernatural, and that the end itself to which man is destined in this order, which is the very inheritance of the adopted son of God, the intuitive vision of God, is absolutely supernatural.

On the causes of justification

In chapter 7 of session 6 the Council of Trent enumerates the causes of justification¹. The final cause is “the glory of God and of Christ and life eternal.” That the glory of God is a final cause is clear; for this holds of every work of God ad extra, and therefore most of all of this pre-eminent work, which is the justification and sanctification of man; in like manner it is clear that men are justified precisely in order to be led thereby to eternal life. Of the relation of the two ends to one another the same must be said as is said in the treatise on creation concerning the glory of God and the good of the creature as the end of creation². That the glory of Christ, however, is a final cause of our justification some of the prelates did not wish to have said in the decree, since the glory of Christ is rather the exemplary than the final cause of our justification. But by far the greater part judged that this addition should be retained: that the primary final cause is indeed the glory of God, but also the glory of Christ, since God has exalted Christ above all things and the glory of Christ is in fact brought about by justification; all our justification is for the sake of Christ, that he may be glorified; and this St Paul clearly teaches, Rom 5. And so in the definitive form of the decree “the glory of Christ” was retained³.

The efficient cause, however, is “the merciful God, who freely washes and sanctifies, sealing and anointing with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance.” No mention was made of Christ as man, since it is disputed among theologians whether Christ as man brought about our justification otherwise than by meriting it and satisfying for it⁴.

The meritorious cause, however, is “his most beloved Only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, when we were enemies, because of the exceeding love with which he loved us, merited justification for us by his most holy passion on the wood of the cross, and satisfied for us to God the Father”⁵. On this matter the proper treatment is in the treatise on redemption.

The instrumental cause, likewise, is “the sacrament of baptism, which is the sacrament of faith, without which no one has ever been justified.” Baptism alone is named, because the present passage treats of the first justification; consequently it must be said that in the third justification the instrumental cause is the sacrament of penance; in the second justification, however, that is, in the increase of sanctifying grace, insofar as an instrumental cause intervenes, the sacraments of the living.

Finally, the sole formal cause is “the justice of God, not that by which he himself is just, but that by which he makes us just, namely that by which, being endowed by him, we are renewed in the spirit of our mind, and are not only reputed but truly named and are just, each of us receiving in himself his own justice.” Some wished faith also to be named in this place, which was not accepted⁶. As was shown above, these words, against the error of the innovators concerning a merely imputed justice⁷, teach an internal and proper justice. The internal justice alone, therefore, is the formal cause of justification, to the exclusion of imputed justice. Concerning this formal cause certain points remain to be said.

In the first section it was proved that in justification the sinner is regenerated, that the divine nature is communicated to him, that he is constituted an adopted son of God; in the second section it was set out that in justification both created gifts and the uncreated gift, the indwelling Holy Spirit, are conferred. Hence the question has been raised among Catholic theologians, how the created gifts and the uncreated gift are related to justice, to the communication of the divine nature, and to adoptive sonship.

Lessius distinguishes the grace of justification, on the one hand, from the communication of the divine nature and adoption, on the other, as a kind of twofold grace. By the created gift man is formally justified; but participation in the divine nature and adoption are formally had through the uncreated gift, the indwelling Holy Spirit, with whom man is united through the created gift. That the grace of justification thus unites man with the Holy Spirit does not come from the physical nature itself of this created entity, but from a free divine ordination. Of itself, therefore, this created gift, sanctifying grace, could exist without an ordination to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the communication of the divine nature. If, however, sanctifying grace is considered together with that divine ordination according to which it unites us with the Holy Spirit, then of it too it can in some sense be said that it makes us sons of God. “The third mode of union (with God) is through the grace of justification; for by it the Holy Spirit, or the Godhead itself, is so communicated to us and united with us that from this union we are made sons of God, having been made partakers of the divine nature. For that the grace of justification makes us sons of God it does not have from its bare physical perfection; for this could even absolutely coexist with mortal sin, if God willed to preserve it; but from the fact that it unites the Holy Spirit, or the divine nature, to us, of which it is as it were the bond. For one is constituted a son not from the conferral of some gift, but from communion in the same nature received from another. Hence as the divine Word is a Son because he received the divine nature from the Father through eternal generation; and the humanity of Christ, or (to speak more properly) that man who is called Christ, is the Son of God because he received the divine nature through the hypostatic union, so the just man is called a son because he received the same nature through the union of grace. In the manner of having that nature, however, there is the greatest difference: for the divine Word so received it that it is united to him essentially and by identity; the humanity, however, receives it that it may be united to it substantially through conjunction in the same hypostasis; but to the just it is joined only through a certain accident, namely through the union of justifying grace. Hence justifying grace, considered bare according to its physical character, constitutes us sons of God not as the principal form from which we are called sons (for this is the Godhead itself communicated to us), but as the bond and union of that form: in which way that man is called the Son of God from the hypostatic union. For as there the hypostatic union stands as a bond rather than as a principal form, so here the grace of justification. But the grace of justification has this power not from its bare physical entity, but from the divine ordination consonant with the natures of things. For no created quality was more suited to this effect; hence God assumed it for this purpose and annexed this power to it stably by his decree. For these two formal accounts differ, to be just and to be a son of God. For to be just is an intrinsic denomination from the inherent justice by which one is made conformable to the divine law; which justice is a created gift interiorly renewing the soul, whether or not they distinguish this gift from charity. For this gift has from its nature precisely that it makes the soul just, that is, conformable to the law. But to be a son is a denomination partly intrinsic from the same gift of justice, partly extrinsic from the Godhead communicated to us and indwelling, which is united to us through this gift. For he is a son of God to whom the Spirit of God is communicated, as is gathered from the Apostle, Rom 8, and from many other places of Scripture. But it is communicated through charity intrinsic to us. And so that charity makes a son of God it has partly from its own nature, insofar as sonship presupposes justice; partly from the divine ordination, insofar as it further unites to us the Godhead itself, so that it may be in us, and we may live from it a spiritual life, and it, as a kind of supernatural soul, may rule us in all our movements. And so it is the union of mover and moved”⁸.

A few years after “De Summo Bono” he published the work “De perfectionibus moribusque divinis”, in which⁹ he treats the same question in a similar way. He had written this treatise, with the exception of books 13 and 14, already thirteen or fourteen years before its publication, and hence before the publication of “De Summo Bono”. To chapter 11 he added an appendix; for: “Concerning those things which were said in chap. 11 of book 12 about adoption, some desired a fuller explanation, on account of certain persons who did not sufficiently understand my mind.” There at the end he summarizes his view thus: “These things being posited as partly certain, partly highly probable, it follows first that the gift of habitual grace can be regarded in two ways: first, precisely according to its physical entity, without any real or moral account intervening; second, insofar as it is the bond of the divine Spirit. If it be considered in the former way, although this gift is sufficient to confer the positive formal effect of justice, it is not sufficient to delete sin or to constitute one absolutely a son of God, as has been sufficiently declared above. If, however, it be considered in the second way, then this gift from another source suffices for both effects; nay, it necessarily brings about both by way of formal cause in such a way that it could not be otherwise even by the absolute power of God, namely that either sin not be deleted, or that he who receives this gift not be constituted an adopted son of God and heir of the kingdom. Hence this manner of explaining the justifying form, as it stands in this state, seems most fitting and most worthy of God. First, because it is most consonant with the Scriptures, which everywhere explain the adoption of sons through the gift of the Holy Spirit, as has been shown above; second, because in this way, for the character of a justifying form to confer its formal effect completely, no favour intervening or gratuitous acceptance is required; for habitual grace, insofar as it is at the same time the bond uniting the divine Spirit to us in a singular manner, without any further gratuitous favour necessarily deletes sin, interiorly renews the mind and constitutes a son of God, so that it could not be otherwise even by the absolute power of God. For although some favour may seem to be required for the divine Spirit to be infallibly and inseparably connected with that gift, nevertheless once this connexion is posited, which that gift naturally demands, without any new favour it is plainly sufficient to posit those effects in such a way that they cannot be impeded in any manner. And in this way the favour or acceptance is not, as it were, a part of the justifying form, as in the other view. It follows secondly that the divine Spirit is included in the form constituting a son of God, not indeed in the direct term, as the saying goes, but in the oblique. For in order that one be a son of God, he ought not to be the divine Spirit, or be informed by it as by a form; but he ought to have it indwelling and in some way united through habitual grace, so that the formal account in the direct term constituting the account of an adopted son is to have or possess in such a way, namely through habitual grace, the indwelling Spirit of God, or to have habitual grace as the intrinsic form uniting the divine Spirit to us. Thus there are not two intrinsic forms in the direct term, but one only, which nevertheless includes an order to an extrinsic one; just as when someone is called rich from riches and from the possession of riches, there are not two intrinsic forms, but one only expressing an order to an extrinsic one; yet each is essentially necessary for the account of an adopted son as it is now in fact and most consonantly with the nature of things constituted.”

Clearly, then, Lessius here attributes to sanctifying grace that it be the formal cause of adoption; but by one account it is the formal cause of justification, by another of adoption. The former by its physical entity, the latter insofar as according to the divine ordination it unites us with the Holy Spirit; therefore in this place too he teaches that grace is not by its physical being the formal cause of the communication of the divine nature and of adoption.

In part Petavius followed this view of Lessius¹⁰, as did Thomassinus¹¹ and, in our own times, Hurter¹².

Although this opinion is in no way contrary to the definition of the Council of Trent¹³, it nevertheless does not seem to be admitted, and so the theologians most commonly judge. For the sources of revelation establish no difference between justification and regeneration, the communication of the divine nature, adoption. In the present order he is not just unless by regeneration he participates in the divine nature and is an adopted son of God. If, then, grace, as Lessius holds, as a created entity formally justifies man, it confers on him that justice which alone is had in the present order, namely that which is identically the communication of the divine nature, regeneration. And what the holy Fathers say on this matter¹⁴ must be so understood, that God deifies the soul through that very thing which he works in it and produces in it. It is indeed true, as Lessius says, that the conferral of some gift is not of itself regeneration; but this does not exclude that the conferral of some gift can be regeneration; for this depends on the nature of that gift, and sanctifying grace is precisely a gift whose infusion is regeneration. But it does not seem true that an accidental conjunction with God is already formally regeneration; for the communication of an internal perfection in the nature itself seems necessary for generation. Nor do the things which Lessius brings in from the hypostatic union to explain the matter prove the point. For the hypostatic union is not a generation from God, which is already apparent from the fact that, as the theologians teach, if the Father or the Holy Spirit had become incarnate, that man would not be a natural son of God. But this man, Christ, the incarnate Word, is a natural Son of God not formally through the hypostatic union, but by eternal generation from the Father; nor on account of the hypostatic union is there more commonly admitted in him a certain sonship in the broad sense.

Therefore, with the far more common view of the theologians, it must be said that sanctifying grace is the formal cause of the participation of the divine nature, of deification, not formally in that it is the foundation of a relation to the indwelling Holy Spirit, but as a physical entity of this kind inhering in the soul and perfecting it.

Hence there now arises the further question: how is it to be understood that by the communication of this entity there is had a participation of the divine nature, the deification of man? In the second thesis it was already noted that this is not a question of a univocal participation of the divine nature; yet on the other hand what the sources say does not permit this participation to be taken for a mere metaphor, nor to be conceived merely as a moral participation; but it is a question of a physical participation, which according to the doctrine of the Fathers and theologians consists in a special assimilation to God. What, then, is this assimilation?

Every created entity in some sense bespeaks a likeness to God; for the possibility of things is founded on the fact that God is imitable by such an entity. Hence in all creatures there is found a “vestige” of God; this holds already of material things. But the likeness in them is most imperfect, since material perfections cannot be found formally in God. In a special way, however, man is like God insofar as he is spiritual, knowing and willing. For spiritual perfections are found in God formally, although in God and man they are found not univocally but analogically. Hence it was said of man: “Let us make man to our image and likeness... And God created man to his own image, to the image of God he created him”¹⁵. On account of their greater immateriality and more perfect intellectuality the angels are by their nature like God in a more perfect way¹⁶.

If, then, greater and lesser likeness to God is measured by more or less perfect immateriality and intellectuality, that assimilation to God which is the communication of the divine nature, generation from God, must be placed in this, that it elevates man analogically and accidentally to that order of intellectuality which is proper to God as God; in other words, it so assimilates man to God that man is in a state to which it is connatural to understand in the manner proper to God, namely to see intuitively the uncreated being itself in itself.

Sanctifying grace, then, is a physical accident of such perfection that by its communication it confers this likeness to God: its formal effect is this communication of the divine nature. On this earth this communication of the divine nature is not manifested, neither in itself nor in its acts. “It has not yet appeared what we shall be”¹⁷. The intellectual act connatural and proper to this state of intellectuality, that is, the act of the vision of God, we do not yet have in this life; the regenerate man too in this life does not yet act in the manner of God, but in the manner of a creature. Nevertheless this does not prevent him from now already truly participating in the divine nature. “For as in the natural order man is the image of God, not only insofar as he actually knows God, but also insofar as he has a natural aptitude for knowing God, so in the supernatural order the perfect fellowship of the divine life will be present through the beatific vision, but the aptitude for the divine life is given through sanctifying grace. Since, therefore, that by which something is first constituted in a determinate species of being is called its nature, sanctifying grace, by which man is first constituted in this species of intellectuality, if one may so speak, is rightly called a fellowship of the divine nature”¹⁸.

That the divine nature, which is an infinite substance, can be communicated accidentally and in a finite manner, we do not know by reason alone and we know by revelation alone; after revelation, however, we do not positively understand this possibility, but at most it can be shown that no repugnance is proved. In this matter the same holds as was said of the possibility of the intuitive vision of God; as that is a mystery in the strict sense, so too is the communication of the divine nature through sanctifying grace.

The view proposed is that of Suárez, whom many follow in this matter. He states it thus: “The true excellence, then, of habitual grace, on account of which it is said to be a singular participation of the divine nature, is that which I explained at the end of the preceding book, namely that, since the divine nature is a certain intellectual nature of a higher order, the degree of intellectuality which is in the divine nature is participated in a certain divine and supernatural manner through habitual grace, in which manner indeed it can be participated by no created substance through itself or through a power natural to it. This is made clear from the primary object of the divine intellect... For the divine essence, in the character of an intelligible object in itself and through the intuitive vision immediately terminating at the very essence of God, is so elevated and excellent by reason of its purest actuality and immateriality that it can be seen connaturally by no intellectual substance except by itself. But through grace and supernatural gifts the created intellectual nature is elevated to a participation of that degree of divine intellectuality in which it can intuit that intelligible object, the divine essence, in itself. And for this end the gifts of habitual grace are given per se first, and consequently for the other acts of the same order consonant with that end... But because every participation of the divinity must infinitely fall short of it in the mode of being and subsisting, therefore it is not necessary that grace participate that degree of the divine nature as it is in God with the highest actuality through essence, or with the highest simplicity, infinity and similar properties incommunicable to the creature; but it is enough that it participate the degree itself of the intellectual nature able to attain in itself the supreme intelligible object”¹⁹.

With this nature man also receives powers or faculties, the infused virtues, for eliciting the acts which befit this nature and the state of man deified, an adopted son of God, but still on this earth living in the state of wayfarers.

Gonet, with others, holds that through grace the divine nature is participated as it is pure act, infinite being, unparticipated being. But this view does not seem to be admitted; for, as Suárez rightly notes: “by the very fact that the divine being is participated, it is not participated as unparticipated”²⁰.

Ripalda²¹ thinks that the participation of the divine nature consists in an assimilation to God as he is holy. In fact this assimilation is had. For if the formal effect of sanctifying grace is the communication of the divine nature, by its infusion man is by that very fact made just with that justice which alone is had in the present order: conformed to God and to his will, and ordered to the possession of the ultimate end itself by vision, to eternal life. By that very fact too man is constituted holy, both because he is set apart from the profane and is designated and consecrated to God and his worship, and also because according to this nature and the faculties conferred with it, the infused virtues, he acts only holily. Thus there is truly had an assimilation to God, who is holiness itself, and this belongs altogether to that assimilation to God which is conferred by grace. But the participation of the divine nature does not seem to be placed exclusively in that, but in the assimilation to the divine intellectuality, as was said above. And so too the theologians conceive the matter much more commonly.

Is divine adoption also a formal effect of sanctifying grace?²² Adoption formally denotes a juridical relation between the adopter and the adopted; among men it presupposes the same human nature, and therefore in it there is no communication of nature. But God communicates his divine nature to him whom he wills to make his adopted son, and that by generating, so that this adoption includes a certain generation. As the communication of nature made through generation makes him who is generated a son of the generator, so here too it must be said: by the communication of the divine nature through generation from God man is constituted an adopted son of God. The communication of nature, or the divine nature itself communicated, is the real foundation of the relation of sonship of the just man to God. Hence adoptive sonship itself must be called a formal effect of sanctifying grace. It is clear, however, that this relation of adoptive sonship cannot arise if the subject to whom the divine nature is communicated by sanctifying grace is incapable of this relation. This is the case in Christ as man, whose humanity is indeed adorned with sanctifying grace, but who, as a natural Son of God, cannot be an adopted son; for adoption is the assumption of a person outside the family into the rights of a natural son.

Is sanctifying grace the formal cause of the remission of sins? How are the infusion of grace and sin related to one another? First of all it is clear that the infusion of grace without the remission of sins is of itself possible, if no sin is found in the subject, as in Christ as man, in the first parents, in the angels. Moreover it is clear that God in another order could have remitted sin without the infusion of grace. This, however, cannot happen in the present order; for conversion to God as ultimate end is not had in the present order without sanctifying grace; the lack of this grace is not a mere absence but a true privation, a disorder; for man is thus turned away from God, his ultimate end. The privation of sanctifying grace in the present order belongs essentially to sin²³. The remission of sin therefore necessarily demands that this privation be removed, that grace be infused. Further, in the same subject sin and sanctifying grace are not found together; hence in the sinner the infusion of grace is not without the remission of sins. But from this it does not yet necessarily follow that the remission of sin is formally through grace itself. Hefner²⁴ notes that the Council of Trent chose this form: “justification... is not the mere remission of sins, but also the sanctification...” because it did not wish to decide the disputed question whether a juridical act of God precedes the infusion of grace, by which sins are remitted, or whether the remission of sin is had through the infusion of grace itself; and so the council only teaches that in fact sins are not remitted without the infusion of grace. Now, however, the theologians teach that it is rightly said that sin is deleted by the infusion of grace.

But it is asked whether it is of the nature of grace to exclude sin from the subject in which it is. The Scotists and some of the nominalists grant indeed that sanctifying grace is the formal cause of the remission of sin and of justification, but not an adequate one; namely, there must accede the ordination of God by which he wills to remit sin where grace is infused. Grace and sin do not exclude one another physically, but only morally, on account of the dignity of grace, and this dignity grace has from the divine ordination²⁵. Yet this view does not seem to be admitted. For grace is formally the communication of the divine nature and makes man an adopted son of God; but this nature, by its own nature, that is, without a special divine ordination, seems to include such moral dignity that sin is excluded from the subject. He who is an adopted son of God is a friend of God and cannot at the same time be an enemy of God, a sinner; what formally makes a man a friend of God formally excludes him from being an enemy of God. For it must be considered that sanctifying grace is not a physical accident of any kind, but an entity altogether of its own kind, the communication of the divine nature, by which man is elevated to the strictly supernatural order, that is, the divine order. And hence the reasoning of the opposite view is already dissolved: God cannot be necessitated to love by a created entity. For sanctifying grace is an entity which makes man a son of God, and where God from his liberality produces such an entity in a man, he loves that man as his friend and son. Besides, it is hard to understand how grace is the formal cause of justification if, in order to delete sin, a special favour of God must still accede; for it seems to belong to a formal cause that it produce its formal effect by its own communication.

But even supposing that grace by its physical nature, without a new special favour, expels sin, it is still asked whether this is merely connatural to grace or essential to it; if the latter, it would be metaphysically repugnant, and not even by the absolute power of God would it be possible for grace to be infused and sin to remain; if, however, only connatural, by the absolute power of God sin could remain in a soul adorned with sanctifying grace. A metaphysical opposition between grace and sin is taught by Gonet, the Salmanticenses, Billuart, Vázquez, Mazzella, Pesch, Schiffini, Lange; a physical one by Suárez, Tanner, Mendive, Villada, Beraza.

The former view, which establishes a metaphysical opposition, seems to be preferred, and indeed for the same reasons which were brought forward above against the Scotists. For if grace is truly such an entity that by its infusion man is generated from God, the term of this infusion or generation is an adopted son of God, a friend of God; but it seems metaphysically repugnant that God by the infusion of sanctifying grace make a man his son and friend, and at the same time hate the same man as his enemy. In like manner it seems metaphysically repugnant that God by the infusion of grace make a man an heir of eternal life, and at the same time will that the same man be subject to eternal punishment. Man is constituted holy by grace, rightly ordered to God as ultimate end; therefore by that very fact that he is formally constituted ordered, disorder in relation to the same end is formally excluded; or: it is metaphysically repugnant for a man at the same time, in relation to the same term, to be actually ordered and not ordered.

If, however, it be said in reply to these and similar reasons that all this holds of grace considered not in its bare physical being but together with its moral dignity, or of grace considered in its physico-moral being, it must be answered that grace is presented in the sources as an entity so sublime that it must be said to include that dignity by its own nature, so that what conflicts with this dignity conflicts with grace itself. For if this were not admitted, it would have to be said that that perfection by which grace makes man a friend and son of God, by which it metaphysically excludes sin from man, is not something essential to grace itself but something which can be present or absent. It is present, then, if and insofar as God wills it to be present; and so there is the danger of falling into the view of Mastrius.

Therefore it must be said: sanctifying grace by its essence is an entity of such perfection that by its nature it is the formal cause of the remission of sins, of justification, of the communication of the divine nature, of adoption.

Finally it may still be asked: is created grace in justification the sole formal cause in the sense that God himself, the Holy Spirit, cannot in any way be called the formal cause? To this it must be said: in the strict sense God himself cannot be the formal cause of any perfection of a creature; but formal cause is also used in a somewhat broader sense. In justification there is given the uncreated gift, God himself indwelling, and grace is the foundation of a relation to the indwelling God. The term of this relation is the Holy Spirit; but the term of a relation can rightly be called an external and assisting form of the subject of the relation. And hence it can be said altogether that the Holy Spirit in justification stands in the manner of an assisting form, and that by way of analogy. “This higher nature which is given to man: (namely in justification) does not only stand as an absolute form, which confers on man an inherent splendour and perfection, but also as a relative form, by which man is united in an ineffable manner with the Holy Spirit and with the whole Most Holy Trinity, and has God as his own good within himself: which indwelling of the Holy Spirit is in a way the summit and the most noble element of this deification”²⁶.