De gratia Redemptoris

What the adult sinner can and must do with the help of grace

According to the innovators of the sixteenth century, man was wholly corrupted by original sin, lost free will, can no longer do any good, nay whatever he does is sin. Hence it is clear that he cannot actively cooperate in his justification, but behaves merely passively in receiving justice. By fiducial faith he apprehends the merits of Christ and his justice is imputed to him. Fiducial faith is not an active cooperation in justification, but rather a passivity, it is the mere instrument by which justice is apprehended. But this faith is absolutely certain, and therefore the man justified (imputatively) is absolutely certain of his justification; hence there is nothing of uncertainty, no doubt about the imputed justice. This according to them is the true doctrine of justification through faith alone¹.

Against these errors the Council of Trent set forth the true Catholic doctrine, according to which the adult man in his justification does not behave merely passively, but must prepare himself through acts of the virtues with the help of grace. By these acts, however, he does not merit justification, but disposes himself for it, so that justice is conferred also according to the measure of this disposition. The doctrine of justification through fiducial faith is rejected, and with it the doctrine of the empty confidence of the heretics which coheres with it.

In the three following theses we shall treat 1) of the disposition of the adult for justification; 2) of the necessity of grace for this disposition; 3) of the supernatural character of the disposing acts.

The thesis, as is clear, has three parts: 1) justification is entirely gratuitous, not from merit; 2) man must prepare and dispose himself; 3) fiducial faith is rejected.

Merit in the widest sense can be described as: a work worthy of retribution. It is therefore a work that essentially regards another, the one who retributes. The retribution consists in this, that for what someone by his work confers on another, something corresponding is conferred on him. For there to be any question of merit, then, the work must be in the power of the one acting (a work performed with advertence of reason, freely posited), and it must redound to the utility or the harm, the honour or the dishonour of another. For if these are lacking, there can be no question of retribution. In itself merit can be said of good and of evil, and is so said: to merit a reward, to merit punishment; but evil merit is customarily called demerit. Good merit, then, or merit without qualification, is a good work rendered in the service (the utility, the honour) of another, worthy of retribution, that is, of reward.

To say that a work is worthy of some reward states a perfection of that work, by which it is suited to such a retribution; this value of the work is called aptitudinal merit, merit in the first act. For from the sole fact that someone has performed a work of such value, he does not yet thereby have actual merit with another; but its acceptance must be added, so that aptitudinal merit becomes merit in the second act. Therefore for formal merit in the second act both the value of the work and its acceptance are required. This acceptance can precede the work itself, or follow upon the completed work.

According to the varying proportion between the meritorious work and the reward, a distinction is drawn between merit of condignity and merit of congruity. “A man is said to merit ex condigno when an equality is found between the reward and the merit according to a right estimate; ex congruo, however, only when such equality is not found, but the gift is bestowed solely according to the liberality of the giver, as being merely fitting”¹. There is said to be an “equality according to a right estimate”, that is, quantitative equality is not required (as, for example, is often had in the buying and selling of goods), but, as St Thomas explains in the same place, an equality of proportion²; and regard must also be had to the person in whose service the work redounds and who rewards. Thus everyone judges that a man who is richer and nobler gives a greater reward than one less rich and less noble. According to St Thomas this equality of proportion is present if the reward, in respect of the one rewarding, is not a greater work than the meritorious work in respect of the one meriting.

On account of that equality, the acceptance being posited, the reward is due from justice; and indeed, if the equality is quantitative, from the rigour of justice; if it is an equality of proportion, not from the full rigour of justice. The dignity of a meritorious work is measured both from the work itself in itself and also from the person performing it.

Only merit of condignity is merit in the strict sense, and it is this that is meant when merit is spoken of without qualification.

Merit is of congruity if that equality is not present, yet a certain dignity is found in the work, on account of which it is fitting to give a reward which in fact exceeds the value of the work. In such a supposition the one in whose service another has worked is not bound to retribution; but the matter can so stand that it is nevertheless congruous to give some reward; for example, if someone has attempted to perform a work in another's service, but without fault, through defect of powers or for another reason, could not complete a work of condignity. The conferral of a reward for merit of congruity does not proceed from justice but from liberality or mercy. Merit of congruity, if it has annexed a promise of God to render the reward, is infallible; otherwise it is fallible. Merit of congruity is not merit in the proper sense, but merit broadly so called.

Disposition, which according to the philosophers belongs to the first species of quality, and which they understand in various ways, can be taken for any accident whatsoever that prepares the subject for something else, or for a quality by which the subject is apt for something, for receiving some form. Palmieri³ defines it as “the real bearing of the subject, by which the subject, of itself indifferent, is constituted, once actuated, as more or less proximately suited to receiving the form”. If it constitutes the subject remotely suited, it is a remote disposition; if proximately, a proximate one; a remote disposition is connected with the form mediately, a proximate one immediately. There is a further distinction between physical and moral disposition, according as it renders the subject physically or morally suited to receiving the form.

From this positive disposition is distinguished negative disposition, which is the absence of an impediment to the entry of the form; but this is disposition in a less proper sense.

Disposition can be considered as achieved and as in the making; as achieved it is the suitability described up to this point; as in the making it is either the production of that suitability (positive disposition) or the non-posing of an impediment (negative disposition).

From what has been said the difference between merit and disposition appears: merit essentially regards another, in whose service the work is performed; in disposition no such relation to another is contained. Dispositive acts as such are not necessarily a service, but as such they express a perfection of the subject, by which the subject is rendered suited to receiving the form. Yet the same acts which are a disposition can at the same time have the character of a service towards another, and so at the same time have the character of merit.

I. Nothing of what precedes justification merits it.

It must be noted that it is not enough to show that man cannot merit justification by acts of his natural powers, nor by the works of the law; nor is it enough to show that that grace which, as will be said in the following thesis, is necessary for the disposing acts is not the object of merit; for in this way it is not yet excluded that man can merit justification by the very acts which he elicits with the help of grace granted without merit; but it must be shown that justification itself is not, in itself, the object of the merit of the sinner who is to be justified. In this part merit is understood as merit of condignity. So understood, this part is of faith.

THE DOCUMENTS OF THE CHURCH

The Council of Trent, sess. 6, cap. 7, assigns solely our Lord Jesus Christ as the meritorious cause of justification⁴. Then in cap. 8 it explains how the words of the Apostle, that we are justified freely, are to be understood: in that sense, namely, “which the constant consensus of the Catholic Church has held and expressed”, that is, that “we are said to be justified freely because none of those things which precede justification, whether faith or works, merits the grace of justification itself; for if it is grace, it is now not from works, otherwise, as the same Apostle says, grace is now not grace”⁵.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

Rom 3, 24: “being justified freely by his grace”, the very words which the Council of Trent explains. — 4, 1 ff. shows that if justification were from works it would be according to debt and not according to grace; but justification is according to the purpose of grace. — 11, 6 establishes the same principle cited by the Council of Trent: “but if it is by grace, it is now not by works: otherwise grace is now not grace”. — Eph 2, 8: “for by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: for it is the gift of God, not of works, that no man may glory”. — Tit 3, 4 ff.: “But when the benignity and humanity of our Saviour God appeared, not by the works of justice which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the laver of regeneration and of the renewal of the Holy Spirit... that being justified by his grace, we may be heirs according to the hope of eternal life”. — Cf. Io 15, 4.

THE FATHERS

St Augustine: “But this grace of Christ, without which neither infants nor grown men can be saved, is not rendered for merits but is given freely; for which reason it is also called grace. Being justified, he says, freely by his blood”⁶. “What merits of his own, then, will the man who has been delivered boast of, when, if what was due to his merits were rendered him, he would be nothing but condemned? Are there then no merits of the just? There are indeed, because they are just. But that they might become just, they were not merits”⁷. — St Prosper: “Man, therefore, being justified, that is, made pious out of impious with no good merit preceding, receives a gift by which gift he may also acquire merit”⁸. — “But if you also direct the gaze of your mind to those who, after passing a long life in shameful deeds and crimes, are renewed at the very end of life by the sacrament of Christ's baptism, and are transferred into the fellowship of the heavenly kingdom without any support of good works, with what understanding will you grasp the divine judgment, except that you acknowledge without doubt that the gifts of God are gratuitous; and that as there are no crimes so detestable that they can keep out the gift of grace, so there can be no works so excellent that what is bestowed freely should be owed to them by the judgment of retribution? For the redemption of the blood of Christ would grow cheap, and the prerogative of human works would not yield to the mercy of God, if the justification which is wrought by grace were owed to preceding merits, so that it would not be the gift of the giver but the wage of the worker”⁹.

REASON

Reason easily understands that man, a sinner and an enemy of God, cannot perform a work of such value before God as to merit of condignity the participation of the divine nature, generation from God, adoptive sonship, and so the inheritance of eternal life.

II. The adult man must prepare and dispose himself for justification by the acts of the virtues.

What is affirmed is a positive and indeed moral disposition, and so understood this part is of faith; whether these acts are also a physical disposition is controverted, on which matter a few things will be said at the end of this part.

THE DOCUMENTS OF THE CHURCH

The Council of Trent¹⁰: in chapter 5 it treats of the necessity of preparation for justification; men are disposed for their own justification by freely assenting to and cooperating with the grace of God. And it condemns the opposite opinion in can. 4: “If anyone says that the free will of man, moved and excited by God, does not by assenting to God exciting and calling cooperate in any way, so as to dispose and prepare itself to obtain the grace of justification, and that it cannot dissent if it wishes, but that, like something inanimate, it does nothing at all and is merely passive: let him be anathema.” In can. 5 the opinion is condemned which denies that free will remains after the sin of Adam. — In chapter 6 it describes the manner of preparation by enumerating the various acts occurring in it: dogmatic faith, fear of the justice of God, hope in the mercy of God, the beginning of the love of God, aversion from sin, penance, the purpose of receiving baptism, of a new life and of keeping the commandments. Several texts of sacred Scripture are added in which this doctrine is stated. As is clear from the history of the council, it did not wish to declare that all those acts are necessary before all justification¹¹. The opposite doctrine, that those acts are not only not a disposition for justification but are sins, is condemned in can. 7 and 9. Can. 9: “If anyone says that the impious is justified by faith alone, so as to understand that nothing else is required by way of cooperation for obtaining the grace of justification, and that it is in no way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will: let him be anathema.” — Cap. 7: “This disposition or preparation is followed by justification itself.” Each one receives his own justice “according to the measure which the Holy Spirit divides to each as he wills, and according to each one's own disposition and cooperation”. In chapter 8 it explains what it is to be justified by faith, namely that faith is the beginning, the foundation and the root of all justification.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

The Council of Trent already cited several texts of sacred Scripture at the end of chapter 6. The following texts are arranged according to the order in which the council describes the manner of preparation.

Faith: Rom 3, 28. 30: “For we account a man to be justified by faith without the works of the law... for there is one God, who justifies the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith”. — 5, 2: “Through whom (Jesus Christ) we also have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God”. — Gal 3, 8: “But the Scripture, foreseeing that God justifies the Gentiles by faith, foretold to Abraham: In thee shall all nations be blessed. Therefore they who are of faith shall be blessed with faithful Abraham”. — 3, 24: “Wherefore the law was our pedagogue in Christ, that we might be justified by faith”. — Phil 3, 9: “that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own justice, which is of the law, but that which is of the faith of Christ Jesus: which is of God, justice in faith, to know him...”. — Hebr 11, 6: “But without faith it is impossible to please God. For he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him”. From this last text it also appears that that faith is dogmatic which has truths to be admitted as its object¹².

Fear: Eccli 1, 27: “The fear of the Lord drives out sin” (a text cited by the Council of Trent). Cf. Prov 4, 27.

Hope: Matth 9, 2 (Marc 2, 5): “Be of good heart, son, your sins are forgiven you” (cited by the Council of Trent). — Prov 28, 25: “But he who hopes in the Lord shall be healed”.

Love: Luc 7, 47: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much”. — 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”. — Cf. 1 Io 3, 14.

Penance: Ez 18, 21: “But if the wicked does penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keeps all my commandments, and does judgment and justice, he shall live and not die”. — Matth 4, 17: “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say: Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”. — Luc 13, 1-9 on the necessity of penance, on the barren fig tree; cf. Luc 24, 47. — Actus 2, 38: “But Peter said to them: Do penance, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (a text cited by the Council of Trent).

Works of mercy: Tob 12, 9: “For alms deliver from death, and it is that which purges away sins, and makes one find mercy and eternal life”. Cf. Dan 4, 24.

Generally, cooperation is required: Zach 1, 3: “Turn to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will turn to you, says the Lord of hosts” (cited by the Council of Trent). — 1 Reg 7, 3: “Prepare your hearts to the Lord” (cited by the Council of Trent).

Man, therefore, must by his acts concur towards his own justification. To these acts there applies the definition of disposition given above: for by them man prepares himself and renders himself ever more suited to receiving justification; a true connexion, too, is established between those acts and justification: justification is by faith, through faith, of faith, because she loved much; fear drives out sin, alms purges away sins and makes one find eternal life. All this cannot be said of a merely prerequisite condition.

THE FATHERS

Clement of Alexandria: “This great change, therefore, proceeds from God, whereby it comes about that a man, from being an unbeliever made a believer, believes through hope and fear. But faith appears to us to be the first inclination to salvation, after fear and hope, advancing out of penance together with continence and endurance, lead us to love and knowledge”¹³. — “When we hear: your faith has saved you, we do not take him (Christ) to be saying simply that those will be saved who have believed in any way whatever, unless works also have followed. For he spoke that word to the Jews alone, who had lived according to the law and without reproach, and who lacked only faith in the Lord”¹⁴. — Origen: “He who dies in his sins, even if he says that he believes in Christ, has not really believed in him; for even if it is called faith, yet if it exists without works, such faith is dead, as we read in the epistle which is circulated under the name of James”¹⁵. — St Gregory of Nyssa: “Joining and weaving justice together with faith, (Paul) prepares through them a breastplate for the armed man, shielding the soldier rightly and safely by both. For it is impossible that the man who uses one of the two, separated from the other, be safely armed. For neither is faith without the works of justice sufficient to save, nor again is the justice of life of itself, with faith separated from it, safe for salvation”¹⁶. — St John Chrysostom: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life... Do you say, then, that it suffices to believe in the Son in order to have eternal life? By no means. Hear Christ himself declaring this in these words: Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; and blasphemy against the Spirit suffices to thrust a man into hell. And why do I speak of parts of the doctrine? For even if a man believes rightly in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, if he does not live rightly, faith will profit him nothing for salvation”¹⁷. — St Jerome: “...because the just man lives by faith... We must consider, then, that he did not say that man or husbandman lives by faith, lest he give occasion for despising the works of the virtues; but the just man lives by faith, so that whoever was a believer and was to live by faith could not otherwise come to faith, or live in it, unless he had first been just and had ascended, by purity of life, as by certain steps, to faith”¹⁸. — St Augustine: “But if anyone says that faith merits the grace of doing well, we cannot deny it; indeed we most willingly confess it. For we wish our brethren, who glory much in their own works, to have that faith by which they obtain charity, which alone truly works well”¹⁹. — “You will be the work of God, not only because you are a man, but also because you are just. For it is better to be just than to be a man. If God made you a man, and you make yourself just, you do something better than God did. But God made you without you. For you contributed no consent so that God might make you. How could you consent, who did not exist? He, therefore, who made you without you does not justify you without you. He made you without your knowing it; he justifies you with your willing it”²⁰. — St Fulgentius: “Without faith it is impossible to please God. For faith is the foundation of all good things, faith is the beginning of human salvation. Without it no one can belong to the number of the sons of God, because without it neither does anyone in this age obtain the grace of justification, nor will he possess eternal life in the age to come; and if anyone here does not walk by faith, he will not arrive at sight. Without faith every labour of man is empty”²¹. — St Gregory the Great: “Neither does faith avail without works, nor do works without faith, unless perhaps they are done in order to receive faith; as Cornelius, before he was a believer, merited to be heard for his good works; from which it is gathered that he was doing good works in order to receive faith”²².

Objections

1. Faith alone without works is a sufficient disposition for justification. Rom 3, 28: “For we account a man to be justified by faith without the works of the law”. — Eph 2, 8. 9: “For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: for it is the gift of God, not of works, that no man may glory”. — Resp. a) From the context it is clear that in Rom 3, 28 faith is directly opposed to the works of the law, and that there, and in Rom 4 and Eph 2, 8. 9, the discourse is about works without faith, done outside faith, and about such things on account of which man could attribute salvation to himself (glory), that is, about meritorious works; but works done by a believer with the help of grace (cf. the following thesis) are not excluded, since they only dispose for justification and do not take away its gratuitousness. Therefore a distinction can be made: the works of the law and works done without faith are excluded, I concede; other works of the virtues, I subdistinguish: as strictly meritorious of justification, I concede; as disposing, again I distinguish: if they were merely natural, I concede; if they are performed with the help of grace, I deny. — b) Explicitly sacred Scripture teaches that faith alone does not suffice. Iac 2, 24: “Do you see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only?” In the epistles of St Paul other things besides faith are required, 1 Cor 7, 19; 13, 1 ff.; Gal 5, 6. See also the texts adduced in the argument. — c) But justification can be attributed to faith in a special way, because, as Trent says, faith is the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and the root of all justification. Often, too, faith is understood not only as the act of the virtue of faith, as it is distinguished from the other virtues, but in a broader sense, as including a life according to that faith.

2. There seems to be an opposition between Rom and Iac; for in Rom it is said that Abraham was justified not from works, but in Iac from works. — Resp. Iac shows that it is not enough merely to believe, that is, to admit a religious truth (2, 19: because there is one God), unless a life according to this faith follows and the commandments of God are kept; faith without works is dead (2, 17. 20. 26). True faith, living faith, is proved by works. Such was the faith of Abraham. Nor would his faith have been unto salvation for him, unless he had also obeyed the God whom he believed. “Faith cooperated with his works, and by works faith was made perfect.” But all these things are not denied in the epistle to the Romans. The faith which St Paul demands is not a dead faith but a living one, which is a true conversion to God. The apparently contrary words are explained from this, that St Paul attacks those who do not embrace the faith and wish to obtain salvation without faith and outside faith by their own works; James, on the other hand, attacks those who have embraced the faith but do not live according to their faith, and think that they can be saved by faith alone without the works which ought to proceed from faith. St Augustine: “Men, however, not understanding what the Apostle himself says: we account a man to be justified by faith without the works of the law, thought that he was saying that faith suffices for a man even if he lives badly and has no good works. Far be it that the vessel of election should have thought so, who, when he had said in a certain place: for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision is of any avail nor uncircumcision, presently adds: but faith which works through love. This is the faith which separates the faithful from the unclean demons; for they too, as the apostle James says, believe and tremble, but they do not work well”²³.

3. The faith required for justification is not dogmatic faith. On this matter see De virtutibus, thes. 1.

4. If justification is from works, it is no longer gratuitous. — Resp. I distinguish: if it is from natural works meritorious of condignity, I concede; if it is from works performed with the help of grace as disposing, I deny.

From what has been said it is clear that man does not behave merely passively in his justification, but must cooperate, prepare and dispose himself. This disposition is proximately moral, and this is conceded by all; for by these acts man is rendered morally more apt to receive justice. Among theologians, however, as was already indicated above, it is controverted whether those acts are also a physical disposition for justification. This question can be put whether one holds that grace is created, or holds, with St Thomas¹ and the more common opinion, that it is educed from the obediential potency of the soul. This physical disposition is affirmed by Billuart² and others; but more commonly it is denied³.

That a physical disposition for justification is not universally necessary is clear from this, that in the justification of infants it is not present. A special reason would therefore have to be indicated why it is necessary in adults. Moreover, a physical disposition in the manner of a first act seems not to be admitted; for it would have to be a supernatural habit. But if grace, as it is a supernatural habit, required a physical disposition, the same would have to be said of that habit which physically disposes, and so one would proceed to infinity. If, however, the question is about the disposing acts themselves, whether they are a physical disposition, this seems to be denied of the remotely disposing acts, because they are no longer present when the justifying form is infused. There would remain, then, only the question of that last disposing act which is simultaneous with the reception of the form; for example, in justification through an act of contrition or of perfect charity outside the sacrament. In such a case the argument drawn from the remotely disposing acts would indeed not hold; but neither does there seem to have been brought forward up to now any argument by which a physical disposition is truly proved. Besides, since grace, according to the more probable opinion, is subjected in the substance of the soul, a physical disposition of the substance of the soul would have to be indicated; but the acts, if they disposed physically, would dispose the faculties. Hence the opinion which says that the acts are a moral disposition, and not a physical one, seems altogether to be preferred⁴.

Above¹ the difference between disposition and merit was indicated, and it was said there that the act which is a disposition can at the same time be a merit. But since in the first part of this thesis merit of condignity has already been excluded, the question concerns merit of congruity alone. This too is a question on which not all theologians say the same thing². Billuart³ says of this matter: “Before all else, that equivocation may be removed and certain contrary opinions about merit of congruity reconciled, it must be observed that we distinguish, with the Author here⁴ at a. 6, a twofold merit of congruity: one proper and strict, the other broad and improper. Merit of congruity, and that the strict, we place in a right of friendship to a reward, whereby it is distinguished from merit of condignity, which imports a debt of justice. Merit of congruity taken broadly and improperly we place in the claim of a form by way of disposition or of impetration. Some, however, confuse these two merits of congruity; whence arises the discord between us and them, while they say that certain things fall under merit of congruity which we deny; but, as is plain, the controversy is about the name only, and comes from a different understanding of merit of congruity.” Then he lays down this assertion: “No one can merit for himself the first habitual grace, neither by condignity nor by proper congruity, but by improper congruity only.” And the reason is plain, because that right of friendship which is had in merit of congruity is found only in a friend of God, in a man already justified. In this view, therefore, all merit of congruity properly so called must be denied to those who are still in the state of sin⁵.

Moreover, the far more common opinion of theologians is that the state of grace is not required for merit of congruity, and consequently that it does not include a “right of friendship”; hence theologians generally do not have that distinction between merit of congruity strictly and broadly taken. And so they more commonly teach as well that the acts disposing to justification possess also the character of merit of congruity. — Besides, the FATHERS attribute some merit to these acts. ST JEROME: “Those who simply confess their sins merit clemency from the Saviour by their humility”⁶. — ST AMBROSE: “Peter therefore wept, and wept most bitterly, wept that he might wash away his offence with tears: and do you, if you wish to merit pardon, wash away your guilt with tears”⁷. ST AUGUSTINE: “They can indeed say that the remission of sins is a grace which is given to no preceding merits. For what good merit can sinners have? But not even that remission of sins is without some merit, if faith obtains it. For the merit of faith is not nothing, by which faith that man said: Lord, be merciful to me a sinner; and he went down justified by the merit of faithful humility, since he who humbles himself shall be exalted”⁸. — “But we know that God does not hear sinners, etc. He who is still unanointed speaks (namely the blind man). For God also hears sinners. For if God did not hear sinners, that publican would in vain have cast down his eyes to the earth and struck his breast, saying: Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. And that confession merited justification, as this blind man merited illumination”⁹. In the COUNCIL OF TRENT the Fathers, by denying merit, did not wish to exclude merit of congruity, as is clear from history¹⁰.

Some theologians dispute whether the act proximately and immediately disposing to justification is from habitual grace itself. This dispute arose chiefly on account of a certain difficult text of St Thomas¹¹, which the disciples of St Thomas themselves explain in different ways. Billuart¹² says: “It will perhaps seem strange that theologians should toil and torment themselves so in explaining this difficulty, when they themselves confess it to be more subtle than useful. We therefore, who pursue usefulness rather than subtlety, will set out briefly the various opinions on this matter and leave them to the judgment of the reader. Among the theologians who disagree on this point, then, some say that these further dispositions to habitual grace are effectively from actual help transiently communicated. So, among the Thomists, John of St Thomas, Sylvius, Contenson, with several outsiders. Some say that they are effectively from habitual grace itself. So Gonet, Serra and others. St Thomas seems to favour each opinion, and hence the difficulty is increased. A third opinion, which strives to reconcile both, says that these acts, the last disposing to justification, are effectively from the infused virtue of charity and of penance, communicated not permanently by way of habit but transiently by way of actual help and motion. So most recently our very wise Goudin.” On this question and the mind of St Thomas see Pesch, 5, 360; Stufler, D. Thomae doctrina de Deo operante 223 ff.; Lange, 343 ff.

III. The doctrine of fiducial faith must be rejected.

According to Luther the sinner apprehends justice by a firm faith, by absolute confidence that God in his mercy does not impute sin for Christ's sake, but holds the man as just. This justice, apprehended by fiducial faith, must be retained by the same faith. It is not lawful to doubt of one's justification; a doubt of this kind would by that very fact take away justice. Sometimes a distinction is drawn between fiducial and special faith, in the sense that fiducial faith is that by which justice is apprehended, and special faith that by which it is retained; but it is altogether the same faith, considered under a different respect. This doctrine therefore essentially includes absolute certainty, absolute confidence concerning the justice obtained. Hence the question of the certainty of grace is intimately connected with the question of fiducial faith. Against this doctrine stands this third part of the thesis.

St Thomas¹³ teaches on this matter: by revelation a man can know that he has grace, if God reveals this to him; by himself he cannot know it with certainty; but he can know it conjecturally by certain signs, inasmuch as he perceives that he delights in God and despises the things of the world, and inasmuch as the man is not conscious to himself of any mortal sin. Similarly Gabriel Biel¹⁴ denied strict certainty. Although texts are found in Scotus in which strict certainty seems to be denied¹⁵, yet several theologians thought that he affirmed such certainty, and they defended this doctrine. Hence in the Council of Trent, when this question was to be treated, disputes arose¹⁶, lest the opinion of the heretics should be condemned in such a form as would at the same time decide a doctrine then controverted among Catholics. There were several in the council who either defended that a man without a special revelation could be certain of his justification, or at least favoured this doctrine (card. Del Monte, and above all Ambrose Catharinus O. P.). Whoever, after receiving the sacrament, if he has sincerely done on his part all that is required for its fruitful reception, should not believe that he is in the state of grace, would distrust divine grace. There was one opinion in the council against the heretics, namely that a man, if he has not a special revelation, is not bound to believe that he is in grace, and that, if he did not believe it, he would lose grace; but on the question whether a man could have certainty of the state of grace, opinions were and remained divided in the council¹⁷. A special difficulty was found in the term “certainty of faith”, which could be understood in various ways. At length there was added “which cannot be subject to falsehood”, by which words the opinion of the heretics was clearly signified, and to this formula all consented.

THE DOCUMENTS OF THE CHURCH

COUNCIL OF TRENT: chap. 9, “Against the vain confidence of heretics. But though it is necessary to believe that sins are neither remitted nor ever have been remitted except freely by divine mercy for Christ's sake, yet it must not be said that sins are remitted or have been remitted to anyone who boasts of confidence and certainty of the remission of his sins and rests in that alone, since this vain confidence, remote from all piety, can exist among heretics and schismatics, and indeed in our own time is preached with great contention against the Catholic Church. Nor must it be asserted that those who are truly justified ought to settle with themselves, without any doubt at all, that they are justified, and that no one is absolved from sins and justified unless he certainly believes that he is absolved and justified, and that absolution and justification are accomplished by this faith alone, as though he who does not believe this doubts of the promises of God and of the efficacy of the death and resurrection of Christ. For as no devout man ought to doubt of the mercy of God, of the merit of Christ, and of the virtue and efficacy of the sacraments, so may anyone, while he regards himself and his own infirmity and indisposition, be fearful and afraid about his own grace, since no one can know with the certainty of faith, which cannot be subject to falsehood, that he has obtained the grace of God”¹⁸. — Can. 12: “If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy remitting sins for Christ's sake, or that this confidence alone is that by which we are justified: let him be anathema.” — Can. 13: “If anyone says that it is necessary for every man, in order to obtain the remission of sins, to believe with certainty, and without any hesitation about his own infirmity and indisposition, that his sins are remitted to him: let him be anathema.” — Can. 14: “If anyone says that a man is absolved from sins and justified by this, that he certainly believes himself to be absolved and justified, or that no one is truly justified unless he who believes that he is justified, and that by this faith alone absolution and justification are accomplished: let him be anathema”¹⁹.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

On the one hand no text of sacred Scripture is found in which our own justice is proposed as the object of faith; on the other hand it positively teaches the things that exclude fiducial faith in one's own justification. Phil 2, 12: “work out your salvation with fear and trembling”. But fiducial faith properly excludes fear and trembling. — Prov 20, 9: “Who can say: My heart is clean, I am pure from sin?” He who has fiducial faith ought to say this, inasmuch as he altogether admits freedom from sin. — 2 Pet 1, 10: “Wherefore, brethren, labour the more that by good works you may make sure your calling and election.” Therefore grace is not preserved by fiducial faith alone. — Eccles 9, 1: “There are just men and wise men, and their works are in the hand of God: and yet man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love or hatred”. Although the text does not properly deal with our question (man knows neither love nor hatred), in tradition nevertheless it is quite often applied to this matter. St Jerome explains it thus: “Now this is the sense: In this too I gave my heart and desired to know whom God loved and whom he hated. And I found that the works of the just are indeed in the hand of God, and yet whether they are loved by God or not they cannot now know, and waver amid ambiguity”²⁰. — Cf. Eccli 5, 5; 1 Cor 4, 4.

THE FATHERS

ST JEROME. See above on Eccles 9, 1. — ST AUGUSTINE: “For however great the justice with which a man is endowed, he ought to consider lest something be found in him to be blamed which he himself does not see, since the just king sits on the throne, whose thought they cannot escape, not even those things of which it is said: Who understands his sins?”²¹. — ST GREGORY THE GREAT: “But what your sweetness (Gregoria) has added in your letters, that you are importunate with me until I write to you that it has been revealed to me that your sins are forgiven, you have asked a thing both difficult and even useless: difficult indeed, because I am unworthy that a revelation should be made to me; useless truly, because you ought not to be made secure about your sins, except when in the last day of your life you will no longer be able to bewail those same sins”²².

THE THEOLOGIANS

The theologians, as is plain, deny the doctrine of Luther, and hold generally that we cannot believe that we are in the state of grace except on account of a special revelation on this matter²³. For those things cannot be believed which God has not revealed; but the justification of individual men has not been revealed by God; therefore it is not an object of divine faith. It has indeed been revealed that God remits sins, but when certain conditions have been fulfilled; that those conditions have been fulfilled in a particular case, however, has not been revealed; therefore a special revelation is required for a man to be able to believe by divine faith that he is in the state of grace.

Further, most commonly and almost unanimously the theologians hold that not even theological certainty is had concerning one's own justification²⁴. For in the syllogism: “God has revealed that he remits sin under these conditions; but I have fulfilled those conditions; therefore I am in the state of grace”, the minor does not have that absolute certainty by which error would be altogether excluded. Hence they teach that conjectural knowledge can be had and is had, that is, a certain moral certainty in the broader sense; indeed they think it good for a man not to have absolute certainty, because of the danger of presumption. But by no means do they therefore teach that men must always doubt and hesitate about their reconciliation with God.

St Bellarmine: ²⁵ “The third opinion, which is the more common in the Church²⁶, does not indeed take away all fear, yet it takes away all anxiety and hesitation and even doubt itself, if a man is called doubtful who does not dare to assent to the other side. For the argument is not good: Catholics have not the certainty of faith about their justification, therefore they always doubt, hesitate, are anxious; just as neither would one rightly conclude on the other side: Catholics are not anxious nor do they hesitate about their justification, therefore they are certain with the certainty of faith that their sins are forgiven them. For something intermediate is given between these extremes, namely a certain moral certainty on the part of the intellect, and hope and confidence on the part of the will.

Moreover, solid consolation and peace, tranquillity and interior joy are far better engendered in Catholics by a good conscience, by contrition, by charity, by the pursuit of good works, by frequent reception of the Eucharist, by the visitation of the Holy Spirit, which is the hidden manna which no man knows but he who receives it, than by that empty confidence and truly rash presumption in the Lutherans. For of a good conscience the Apostle writes, 2 Cor 1: Our glory is this, the testimony of our conscience. And St John in his first epistle, chap. 3: if our heart does not reprehend us, we have confidence with God. Of true contrition Solomon writes, Prov 14: the heart that knows the bitterness of its own soul, in its joy a stranger shall not be mingled. For truly an incredible joy arises from this, that a man sees himself most bitterly bewailing his sins. Moreover charity begets joy and peace before all else. Hence it is said, Gal 5: The fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy and peace, etc.

But from patience, to pass over other things now, a most solid consolation arises. For as the apostle says, Rom 5: We glory in tribulations, because tribulation works patience, and patience probation, and probation hope, but hope does not confound, etc. And 2 Cor 7: I am filled with consolation, I overflow with joy in all our tribulation. And chap. 8: We make known to you, brethren, the grace of God which is given in the churches of Macedonia, that in much experience of tribulation their abundance of joy was...

The holy Fathers too, whose testimonies the adversaries have wrongly adduced for the certainty of faith, and especially Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine and Leo, gathered the security of the soul not from faith in the remission of sins, but from the consciousness of charity and of good works. It pleases me, moreover, in the name of the others, to write here the testimony of St Bernard, whence solid consolation is to be sought. Thus therefore he speaks in sermon 69 on the Canticle: How great, think you, is the grace of familiarity that arises from this dwelling together of the soul and the Word; how great the confidence that follows from familiarity? There is not, as I think, anything that such a soul should now fear to say, my beloved is mine: which, from the fact that it feels that it loves and vehemently loves, does not at all doubt that it is also vehemently loved, and concerning its singular intention, solicitude, care, works, diligence and zeal, with which it unceasingly and ardently watches how it may please God, it equally and indubitably recognizes all these things in him, remembering his promise: in what measure you shall have measured, it shall be measured to you again. Therefore from its own things, which are with God, it recognizes, nor does it doubt that she who loves is loved. And below: not only does he make you certain of your love, if indeed you love him, but also of his solicitude, which he bears for you, if he has felt you solicitous for him.

This certainty, therefore, we gladly acknowledge, which does not arise from the presumption of imputed justice, nor is it the certainty of the Catholic faith, but arises from the experience of charity and of good works, and by this can be called moral and conjectural certainty”

Objections

There are several texts of sacred Scripture which were adduced either by the heretics for a special faith in one's own justification, or by Catholics for its strict certainty. Yet no text is had which deals with a special faith in one's own justification; other texts indeed say that all are justified through the faith of Christ, but say nothing about the conditions fulfilled; several deal with moral certainty, which all theologians admit, and which a man can have by examining his conscience, or from the fact that he leads a truly Christian life and exercises the works of charity. Let there be some examples:

Jn 3, 21: “but he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, because they are done in God”. — I answer. “To come to the light” in this place does not signify to come into the state of grace; the text does not deal with our question.

Jn 13, 35: “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another”. — I answer. The sign of Christianity is mutual charity, the new commandment of Christ; those who exercise it are thereby known by others to be true Christians; but it is not said that others thereby know by faith or by absolute certainty that they are in the state of grace, nor that they themselves know this; they can nevertheless, from a good Christian life, have that moral certainty which all admit. The same must be said to 1 Jn 3, 14; 4, 12; 5, 19.

Jn 14, 17: “but you shall know him (namely the Spirit of truth, whom the Father will give), because he shall abide with you and shall be in you”. — I answer. The disciples will know the Spirit of truth because he will be with them, by the help of the Spirit; but the discourse is not about their knowing that the Spirit is in their soul as indwelling; therefore the discourse is not about our question.

Jn 14, 20: “In that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you”. — I answer. Several understand with St Augustine “in that day” of the day of eternity, of the blessed vision of God; yet it seems better understood of the time after the resurrection of Christ: for then the apostles will always better know the divinity of Christ and his intimate union with his own (cf. 15, 5: the vine, the branches), as of the head with the members. But it is not said that the justified man must believe his own justice, or that he has absolute certainty; individual men can have moral certainty of it.

Acts 13, 39: “In this (Christ) every one that believeth is justified”. — I answer. If the conditions have been fulfilled; but that they have been fulfilled is not had by divine faith, nor by that absolute certainty, but by moral certainty.

Rom 3, 21 f.: “But now without the law the justice of God is made manifest, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the justice of God, by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe in him: for there is no distinction”. — I answer. Justice is not from the law, but without the law unto all who believe. The conditions having been fulfilled, all, not only Jews but also Gentiles, are justified without the works of the law. Cf. Rom 4, 14; 16, 22.

Rom 5, 1: “Being justified therefore by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”. — I answer. The justified man is no longer an enemy of God but in peace with God, and of this relation to God he has such certainty as excludes anxiety and hesitation; but for this moral certainty broadly taken suffices.

Rom 8, 1-18. If a man walks not according to the flesh but according to the spirit, he has that moral certainty so often mentioned; and the testimony of the Holy Spirit of which the apostle speaks is not a special revelation about one's own justification, but, as Bellarmine says, “the experience of a certain sweetness and interior peace, which engenders only conjectural certainty”.

Rom 8, 38 f.: “For I am sure that neither death nor life... nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. — I answer. 1) Some understand the text of those who are truly predestined, and of them it holds that no creature shall separate them from the love of God; but individuals, without a special revelation, do not know whether they are predestined. 2) I am sure signifies: I have a firm confidence that by the power of the grace of Christ we overcome all difficulties; but for such firm confidence moral certainty suffices²⁷.

1 Cor 2, 12: “But we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God; that we may know the things that are given us from God”. — I answer. From the whole context it is plain that the apostle does not speak of the justification of individuals, but of the gifts which have been brought by Christ, and of which we cannot have knowledge through the spirit of the world, but through the Spirit of God. Therefore the discourse is not about our question.

1 Cor 11, 28: “But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice”. — I answer. This proof does not lead to the certainty of faith, but to that moral certainty which a good conscience provides.

2 Cor 1, 12: “For our glory is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity of heart and sincerity of God, and not in carnal wisdom, but in the grace of God, we have conversed in this world: and more abundantly towards you”. — I answer. The apostle begins to explain why he did not come to Corinth earlier; he appeals to the testimony of his conscience, that he did not act in carnal wisdom, but in sincerity and charity. Therefore nothing about our question.

2 Cor 13, 5: “Try your own selves if you be in the faith; prove ye yourselves. Know you not your own selves, that Christ Jesus is in you, unless perhaps you be reprobates? But I trust that you shall know that we are not reprobates”. — I answer. The Corinthians must examine their conscience concerning their living faith; but this examination does not lead to the certainty of faith, nor to absolute certainty, nor does the apostle say such a thing. “Reprobates” is not to be understood of “reprobation”, but signifies unfit, useless: “unless perhaps you are not genuine, namely Christians”.

Eph 3, 12: “In whom (Christ) we have confidence and access with assurance by the faith of him”. — I answer. Confidence ought not to presuppose absolute certainty, but moral certainty broadly taken²⁸.

In the course of the preceding thesis it has already been said more than once that the acts preparing for justification must be performed with the help of grace. It is of this necessity of grace that the present thesis must treat.

“To elicit these acts”: the discourse, then, is about the acts of the sinner by which he is prepared for justification. These acts we call “salutary,” because they positively advance a man toward salvation, or conduce to it, whether mediately or immediately, according as they are a mediate or an immediate disposition. It must be noted, however, that besides these acts there are others also which are called salutary, namely the meritorious acts of the just man; the discourse on these occurs in the third part.

“Even to the very beginning of faith”: the thesis is altogether universal: it extends to all the disposing acts; but “even to the beginning of faith” is added expressly on account of the error of the Semi-Pelagians. The beginning of faith is really the same as the beginning of conversion; it comprises the first desire of salvation together with the antecedent knowledge, the first good will of man in order to salvation, the pious affection of credulity, the imploring of divine help. Therefore grace is necessary for these acts also, by which the motion toward salvation begins; no act is excepted.

“Grace” is necessary: by grace we understand a gratuitous gift, the help of God. That this help is truly gratuitous, that is, undue, is properly shown in thesis 8; yet for the most part it is already contained in the present thesis, inasmuch as without grace there is neither a disposition for grace nor a merit of grace. Since this help is given for eliciting those acts, it ought not of itself to be a permanent help. In the treatise On the virtues¹ it is shown as more probable that habits are not infused before the first justification; consequently it must be said that the help which is given before the first justification is not a habitual gift, but a transient and actual one. For this reason, in distinction from the habitual gifts, it is called actual grace. But the man who has sinned after the first justification can retain the habits of faith and hope², and of itself the wording of the thesis could be satisfied if with the help of those habits he elicited acts disposing him to the third justification. Whether and how far actual grace is necessary for the use of those habits is disputed among theologians, and the discourse returns to this matter later.

“Internal grace”: that is, grace which is in the soul itself, or rather in its higher faculties, the intellect and the will. It is called internal in opposition to external graces, such as are the incarnation of the Word itself, revelation, preaching, the Church, the sacraments, the examples of the saints, and so on.

“Absolutely necessary”: that is, in the present order there can be no salutary act at all, no act disposing to justification, without grace. The powers of man without grace do not suffice; it is through grace that those acts first become possible for man: grace is not required for being able more easily, but for being able simply. The question, moreover, concerns the fact alone; not whether this comes from the nature of the thing or from a positive divine ordinance.

Against this thesis stand, first of all, the Pelagians and the Semi-Pelagians.

The Pelagians (Pelagius, Caelestius, Julian)³ indeed affirmed in words some divine grace; for God gave man his nature and a free will, and so bestowed on him the ability to do good, to fulfil the commandments, to avoid sin; this ability, therefore, is not from us but from God; therefore it is grace. To will and to work thereafter, according to them, is from ourselves. Moreover God gave the law, the doctrine, and so showed men what they ought to do (therefore an external grace). By this external grace it is made easier for man to do what he ought to do. Whether the Pelagians later admitted an internal grace of the intellect is disputed; but certainly they did not admit it for being able simply, but for being able more easily. An internal grace of the will they always denied, since it could not be reconciled with free will. Caelestius: “If I do nothing without the help of God, and every single one of my works is his, then it is not I who labour, but the help of God will be crowned in me, and he gave in vain the power of choice, which I cannot fulfil unless he himself always assists me. For the will is destroyed which needs the aid of another. But God gave free choice, which is not free otherwise than if I do what I will”⁴. Julian: “The freedom of choice, by which man is emancipated from God, consists in the possibility of admitting sin and of abstaining from sin”⁵.

The Semi-Pelagians, or Massilians (Cassian, Vincent of Lérins, Faustus)⁶ altogether defended against the Pelagians the necessity of grace for salutary acts; they denied, however, the necessity of grace specifically for the acts which constitute the “beginning of faith.” The process of justification can be compared with the healing of a sick man. The healing itself is from the physician alone, and from the means which the physician supplies. But before the healing, in order that the physician may begin to heal him, the sick man must acknowledge his misery, trust in the physician and implore his help. These acts do not belong to the healing itself, but precede it. Similarly, at least speaking generally, in the process of justification the sinner must first, by his own powers, know and acknowledge his misery, desire salvation, believe in Christ and trust in him, and implore divine help. And if he has done this, God will begin the “healing,” conferring the graces necessary for salutary acts. If, however, a man does not do these things, he must ascribe it to himself that he does not receive grace; for God offers his grace indifferently to all. These antecedent acts are called the “beginning of faith”; for them, according to the Semi-Pelagians, grace is not required, and on them, in the common view, depends whether a man receives salutary grace⁷.

Against this, then, it must be said: even those first acts are truly salutary acts, remotely disposing to justification, and for them too internal grace is absolutely required; in other words: there are no acts positively ordaining to salvation without grace; therefore for the first grace, which God confers on man, there is no disposition. The work of salvation in each man begins with God.

In the time of the first scholastics affirmations are found which, if taken at face value, have perhaps a Pelagian sense, but from the mind of the authors themselves they do not seem to be so understood⁸. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries similar things are found, and some theologians seem in fact not to have defended sufficiently the necessity of grace for all the acts preparing for justification⁹.

THE DOCUMENTS OF THE CHURCH

Council of Carthage (418), canon 4: “Likewise, whoever says that the same grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord helps us to avoid sin for this reason alone, that through it the understanding of the commandments is revealed and opened to us, so that we may know what we ought to desire and what to avoid, but that through it it is not granted us that we may love and be able to do what we have learned must be done: let him be anathema”¹⁰. — Canon 5: “Likewise it has pleased [the council] that whoever says that the grace of justification is given to us for this reason, that what we are commanded to do by free will we may be able to fulfil more easily through grace, as if, even if grace were not given, we could fulfil the divine commandments, not indeed easily, but still without it: let him be anathema. For the Lord was speaking of the fruits of the commandments when he did not say: Without me you can do it with more difficulty, but said: Without me you can do nothing”¹¹. Cf. the tractatory epistle of Zosimus¹²; in the Council of Ephesus the Pelagians are condemned¹³.

INDICULUS¹⁴: After the authorities have been cited, it continues: “By these ecclesiastical rules, therefore, and by documents taken from divine authority, we have been so confirmed, with the Lord's help, that we profess God to be the author of all good affections and works, and of all efforts and all virtues by which from the beginning of faith one tends toward God, and we do not doubt that all the merits of man are preceded by his grace, through whom it comes about that we begin to will and to do some good”¹⁵.

COUNCIL OF ORANGE: Canon 3: It is from grace that God is invoked by us; canon 4: it is from grace that we will to be cleansed from sin. Canon 5: “If anyone says that the beginning of faith, as also the increase of faith, and the very affection of credulity, by which we believe in him who justifies the ungodly and come to the regeneration of holy baptism, is not through the gift of grace, that is, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit correcting our will from unbelief to piety, but is naturally in us, he is proved an adversary of the apostolic dogmas, blessed Paul saying: We are confident that he who has begun a good work in you will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus¹⁶; and that: To you it is given for Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him¹⁷; and: By grace you are saved through faith, and this not from yourselves: for it is the gift of God¹⁸. For those who say that the faith by which we believe in God is natural, define all those who are alien to the Church of Christ as in some way faithful.” — Canon 6: “If anyone says that mercy is conferred from on high on us who believe, will, desire, strive, labour, pray, watch, study, ask, seek, knock without the grace of God, and does not confess that it is wrought in us by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit that we may believe, will, or be able to do all these things as we ought, and subjects the help of grace to human humility or obedience, and does not consent that it is a gift of that same grace that we are obedient and humble, he resists the apostle saying: What have you that you have not received?¹⁹ and: By the grace of God I am what I am”²⁰. — Canon 7: “If anyone affirms that by the vigour of nature, without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who gives to all sweetness in consenting and believing the truth, a man can think, as is expedient, or choose some good pertaining to the salvation of eternal life, or consent to the saving, that is, the evangelical preaching, he is deceived by a heretical spirit, not understanding the voice of God in the Gospel saying: Without me you can do nothing²¹; and that of the Apostle: Not that we are fit to think anything of ourselves as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God”²². — Canon 9: “It is a divine gift that we think rightly and keep our feet from falsehood and injustice; for as often as we do good, God works in us and with us that we may work.” Cf. canons 14; 15; 16; 20; 22. — “And so, according to the sentences of the sacred Scriptures written above, or the definitions of the ancient Fathers, this we must both preach and believe, God being favourable: that by the sin of the first man free will was so inclined and weakened that no one thereafter can either love God as he ought, or believe in God, or do good for God's sake, unless the grace of divine mercy has preceded him.” — “This also we salutarily profess and believe, that in every good work we do not begin first and afterwards are helped by God's mercy, but he himself, with no merits preceding, first inspires in us both faith and love of himself, so that we may faithfully seek the sacraments of baptism and after baptism be able, with his help, to fulfil the things that are pleasing to him”²³.

BONIFACE II in the confirmation of the Council of Orange²⁴: “And therefore, since on this matter many Fathers and, before the rest, Augustine of blessed memory, bishop, and also Our predecessors, the bishops of the Apostolic See, are proved to have discoursed with such abundant reasoning that it ought no longer to be doubtful to anyone that faith itself also comes to us from grace, We have thought it superfluous to give a lengthy reply; especially since, according to the sentences which you have sent from the Apostle, in which he says: I obtained mercy to be faithful²⁵, and elsewhere: To you it is given for Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him²⁶, it appears evidently that the faith by which we believe in Christ, as also all good things, comes to individual men from the gift of grace from on high, not from the power of human nature. Which we rejoice that Your Fraternity also, in a conference held with certain bishops of the Gauls, has thought in accordance with the catholic faith: namely in those matters in which, as you have indicated, they defined with one consent that the faith by which we believe in Christ is conferred by the prevenient grace of the Godhead; adding also that there is absolutely nothing good according to God which anyone can either will or begin or complete without the grace of God, our Saviour himself saying: Without me you can do nothing²⁷. For it is certain and catholic that in all good things, of which faith is the head, the divine mercy precedes us even against our will, that we may persevere in faith, as the prophet David says: My God, his mercy shall prevent me²⁸; and again: My mercy is with him²⁹ and elsewhere: His mercy shall follow me³⁰. Similarly blessed Paul says: Or who has first given to him, and it shall be recompensed to him? For of him, and through him, and in him are all things³¹. Whence we wonder exceedingly at those who think otherwise, that they are still weighed down to such a degree by the remnants of the old error as to believe that one comes to Christ not by the benefit of God but by nature; and to say that the good of nature itself, which is known to have been depraved by the sin of Adam, is rather the author of our faith than Christ; nor do they understand that they are crying out against the sentence of the Lord saying: No one comes to me unless it has been given him by my Father³²; but also that they oppose blessed Paul crying out to the Hebrews: Let us run to the contest set before us, looking to the author and finisher of faith, Jesus Christ³³. Since these things are so, we cannot find what in believing in Christ without the grace of God they would assign to the human will; since Christ is the author and finisher of faith. Wherefore, greeting you with fitting affection, we approve your confession written above, as consonant with the catholic rules of the Fathers”³⁴.

COUNCIL OF TRENT, sess. 6 cap. 5: “It declares, moreover, that the beginning of justification itself in adults must be taken from the prevenient grace of God through Jesus Christ, that is, from his calling, by which they are called while no merits of theirs exist, so that those who had been turned away from God by their sins, by his exciting and helping grace to convert themselves to their own justification, freely assenting to and cooperating with that same grace, may be disposed...”³⁵. And the corresponding canon 3: “If anyone says that without the prevenient inspiration of the Holy Spirit and his help a man can believe, hope, love or repent as he ought, so that the grace of justification may be conferred on him: let him be anathema”³⁶. Similarly cap. 6: “Aroused by divine grace and helped”³⁷.

THE VATICAN COUNCIL: For faith grace is necessary. Sess. 3 cap. 3; can. 5³⁸.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

The principal texts of Sacred Scripture, which teach the necessity of grace for every salutary act, are employed from the beginning of the controversy with the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians both in the documents of the Church and in the holy Fathers.

1. On every salutary act in general: Io 15, 5: “I am the vine, you are the branches: he who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit: because without me you can do nothing.” The text is universal: without me nothing; it treats of internal grace: from the parable itself. The text speaks immediately of “bearing fruit,” which is proximately understood of meritorious acts. For the discourse is directly about those who are united with the Lord, not about sinners. But v. 5 is altogether universal, and the branch separated from the vine not only cannot bear fruit, but can do nothing at all, especially nothing toward being again vitally united with the vine. Thus a man separated from Christ the vine, a sinner, is spiritually dead: Eph 2, 1: “dead in your offences and sins”; v. 3: “children of wrath”; v. 5: “when we were dead in sins, he quickened us together in Christ, by whose grace you are saved...” In this universal sense Io 15, 5 was used by the Fathers and councils in the Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian controversy. St Augustine: “Lest anyone should think that the branch can of itself bear even some small fruit, when he had said: he bears much fruit, he did not say: without me you can do a little, but: you can do nothing. Whether therefore little or much, it cannot be done without him, without whom nothing can be done”³⁹.

2. Salutary thought: 2 Cor 3, 5: “Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves as from ourselves, but our sufficiency (fitness) is from God.” The Apostle, accused of arrogance and pride, shows that the source of his confidence is not himself but God, to whom he attributes all things: through Christ the mediator he has that confidence toward God, the source of confidence: we are not of ourselves fit, but from God. “To think” not a few, on account of the context, understand of devising the ways and reasons by which the apostolic preaching can be made effective; others, however, in a more universal sense, of thinking every good thing that pertains to salvation. Thus in the controversy with the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians: Council of Orange can. 7; St Augustine: “And therefore, commending this grace, which is not given according to any merits, but produces all good merits: not that we are fit, he says, to think anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God. Let those attend here and weigh these words who think that the beginning of faith is from us and the supplement of faith from God. For who does not see that to think is prior to believing? No one surely believes anything unless he has first thought that it is to be believed. For although certain thoughts fly before the will to believe, however swiftly, however rapidly, and it follows so immediately as to accompany it as it were most closely joined, yet it is necessary that all things which are believed be believed by a preceding thought. Although even to believe itself is nothing other than to think with assent”⁴⁰. This more universal explanation is founded also in the text itself, for the Apostle continues: “who also (καί) has made us fit ministers of the new testament,” passing by the particle “also” from the universal statement to the special: our whole fitness is from God, and we owe this also to him, that we are fit ministers of the New Testament. But if it were not so understood, there would be a tautology: as regards the apostolic ministry our fitness is from God, who also made us fit ministers.

3. On salutary willing and working: Phil 2, 12. 13: “With fear and trembling work out your salvation. For it is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish, for his good will.” The Apostle exhorts the Philippians to strive to attain salvation by working strenuously, with fear and trembling, that is, with religious solicitude to satisfy their duty and their conscience⁴¹; for in this work they depend wholly on God and his benevolent will: for it is God who effects in you both the will and the execution, according to his good will, to manifest his benevolence toward you, out of benevolence. St Augustine: “For God not only gave and assists our ability, but also works in us to will and to work, not because we do not will or do not act, but because without his help we neither will anything good nor do it”⁴².

The texts brought forward are altogether universal, and therefore hold also of the very beginning of faith. But the words of the Lord in Io 6, 44 are specifically about faith: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” Therefore, external grace being supposed, the preaching of Christ, no one can come to Christ, that is, believe (v. 65. 66), unless the Father draws him; therefore no one can believe in Christ without internal grace; therefore internal grace is absolutely necessary for believing itself.

Besides these texts, several others were in use in the controversy with the Pelagians, which perhaps, if considered bare in themselves, are not necessarily to be explained in that sense. Thus especially 1 Cor 4, 7: “For who distinguishes you? What have you that you have not received? But if you have received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?” Of which text St Augustine says: “By which testimony I myself also was chiefly convinced, when I was in like manner in error, thinking that the faith by which we believe in God was not a gift of God but was from ourselves in us, and that through it we obtain the gifts of God, by which we live temperately and justly and piously in this world”⁴³. And afterwards: “To be able to have faith, as to be able to have charity, is of the nature of men; but to have faith as to have charity is of the grace of the faithful. That nature, therefore, in which the possibility of having faith was given us, does not distinguish man from man; but faith itself distinguishes the faithful from the unbeliever. And hereby, when it is said: For who distinguishes you? What have you that you have not received? whoever dares to say: I have faith of myself, therefore I have not received it, surely contradicts this most manifest truth, not because to believe or not to believe is not in the choice of the human will, but because in the elect the will is prepared by the Lord”⁴⁴. Similarly the Council of Orange can. 6⁴⁵.

Cornely says of this text: “For the rest, this verse, according to the common explanation of almost all interpreters, treats of natural gifts, with which the leaders of factions were puffed up, not of supernatural graces”⁴⁶. But it is rightly applied also to the gifts of grace; for if man of himself does not even have the natural gifts by which he is distinguished from others and in which he can glory, this holds a fortiori of the gifts of grace. Other texts which were used are Ps 58, 11; 88, 25; Prov 8, 35 (LXX, The will is prepared by the Lord); Rom 10, 20; 11, 35 ss.; 1 Cor 7, 25; 12, 3; 15, 10; Phil 1, 6. 25; Hebr 2, 1.

THE FATHERS

Before the Pelagian heresy arose this question was not treated by the Fathers ex professo⁴⁷, nor is it surprising that the Fathers, since at that time they were defending human liberty, did not always speak also of the necessity of grace⁴⁸.

ST CYRIL OF JERUSALEM: “It is God's part to confer grace; yours, to receive and keep it. Do not therefore despise grace because it is given gratis; but rather, having received it, keep it religiously”⁴⁹. — ST GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: “For since some there are who are so lifted up in mind by their right actions as to ascribe the whole to themselves, and to give no thanks to the Creator and Author of their wisdom and the supplier of all good things, the discourse teaches them⁵⁰, that even to will rightly itself needs divine help; indeed the very choice of the things that are right is a certain divine gift flowing from the goodness of God. For that we are saved must be both from ourselves and from God. Therefore he says: Not of him who wills, that is, not of him only who wills, nor of him only who runs, but also of God who shows mercy. Thus, since willing itself also is from God, with the best right he assigned the whole to God”⁵¹. — ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM: “God awaits occasions from us, that he may display great liberality. Therefore let us not, through sloth, deprive ourselves of his gifts, but let us hasten and press on to grasp the beginning and the way that leads to virtue, so that, aided by help from on high, we may be able to reach the end also. For it is not possible for us to do any good rightly without the aid of grace from above”⁵². — “Vocation indeed and purification are from grace; but that the called man remain and keep these things, clothed in pure garments, proceeds from the zeal of the called. But we are called not from merit, but from grace”⁵³. — ST AMBROSE: “Fear the Lord and presume of the Lord; for the Lord will send his angels round about those who fear him and will deliver them⁵⁴. You see surely that everywhere the power of the Lord cooperates with human endeavors, so that no one can build without the Lord, no one begin anything without the Lord”⁵⁵.

ST AUGUSTINE is the one who chiefly attacked the opposing error; since several of his texts have already been brought forward, let it suffice here to add one more: “Such and so great doctors⁵⁶ saying that there is nothing of which we may glory as of our own, which God has not given us, and that not even our heart and our thoughts are in our own power, and giving the whole to God, and confessing that we receive from him, that we who are to persevere may be converted to him, that what is good may seem good to us also, and that we may will it, that we may honour God and receive Christ, that from being undevout we may become devout and religious, that we may believe in the Trinity itself, and confess with our voice also what we believe: these things surely they attribute to the grace of God, acknowledge as God's gifts, and testify that they are from him, not from us”⁵⁷.

ST PROSPER OF AQUITAINE: “But how do you not notice that you fall into that loss, in that, whether you will or not, you are convicted of saying that the grace of God is given according to our merits; when you affirm that something of good work on the part of men themselves precedes, on account of which they obtain grace? For the faith of one who asks, the piety of one who seeks, the insistence of one who knocks, cannot be held to be of no merit; especially since all such are said to receive, to find, and to enter. In which it is superfluous, indeed impious, so to wish to make room for merits existing before grace, that what the Lord says should not be wholly true: No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him⁵⁸, which would by no means be said, if the conversion of anyone were to be believed without the illumination of God, or if in any way the will of man could extend itself to God without God”⁵⁹.

ST LEO THE GREAT: “Without God there is no (virtue), nor does it obtain the property of deity unless it is quickened by the Spirit of its author. For when the Lord says to his disciples: Without me you can do nothing⁶⁰, there is no doubt that a man doing good has from God both the effect of the work and the beginning of the will”⁶¹. — ST FULGENTIUS: “Hold most firmly and doubt in no way that a man, whom neither ignorance of letters nor any weakness or adversity prevents, can indeed read the words of the holy law and of the Gospel, or hear them from the mouth of any preacher; but that no one can obey the divine commandments unless God has preceded him with his grace, so that he may perceive with the heart also what he hears with the body, and, having received from on high a good will and strength, may both will and be able to do the commandments of God”⁶².

THE THEOLOGIANS

That the theologians now agree on this matter is plain; on the earlier scholastics see what has been said above; St Thomas treats our question in S. Th. 1, 2 q. 109 a. 6; 2, 2 q. 6 a. 1. 2.

Objections

1. The Semi-Pelagians appealed to various texts of Sacred Scripture: Prov 16, 1: “It is man's part to prepare the soul.” 16, 9: “The heart of man disposes his way.” — Zach 1, 3: “Turn to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will turn to you.” — Matth 7, 7: “Ask and it shall be given you; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you.” — Act Ap 16, 31: “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved, you and your household.” — Rom 7, 18: “To will is present with me, but to accomplish that which is good I find not.”

I answer. Council of Trent, sess. 6 cap. 5: “Whence in the sacred letters, when it is said: Turn to me and I will turn to you, we are reminded of our liberty; when we answer: Convert us, O Lord, to you, and we shall be converted⁶³, we confess that we are preceded by the grace of God.” Hence I distinguish: In the preparation a free cooperation of man is required: I grant; that this is or can be without the help of grace: I deny.

To the examples, however, which they bring forward about Zacchaeus, about the good thief, and so on⁶⁴, it must be said with the Council of Orange: “Whence it is most manifestly to be believed that the faith, so admirable, of that thief whom the Lord recalled to the fatherland of paradise, and of Cornelius the centurion to whom the angel of the Lord was sent, and of Zacchaeus who deserved to receive the Lord himself, was not of nature, but the gift of divine largess.”

2. Of the Fathers who wrote before the Pelagian heresy arose, it has already been said above. That they were not Pelagians or Semi-Pelagians Petavius shows, De Deo, lib. 9, cap. 4 ss. Rightly also in this matter applies what St Augustine said of St Chrysostom in the question of original sin: “But, you will say, why did he not himself add ‘their own’ (namely sins)? Why, we think, except because, disputing in the catholic Church, he did not think he would be understood otherwise, and, assailed by no such question from anyone, he spoke the more securely while you were not yet disputing”⁶⁵.

Since, according to the preceding thesis, internal grace is absolutely necessary for all the acts by which the sinner is prepared for justification, not only for being able more easily but for being able simply, those acts must possess some perfection which cannot be attained by the proper powers of fallen man. But the help which God grants, and by which those acts are made possible, is grace, that is, an undue gift; and it is on this note of the undue that the Fathers insisted strongly against the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians¹. It is impossible for a man by his own powers alone to merit that help, or positively to dispose himself for it; for those acts would then be salutary, and therefore impossible without grace. Hence the question now arises how the impossibility of performing those acts is to be understood, whence it is to be explained, and of what nature is the gratuitousness of that help.

It could perhaps of itself be the case that those acts did not of themselves exceed what is of itself possible by natural powers, but that man through original sin was so weakened in his powers that he could no longer perform those acts, and that God out of mercy supplied his help. Thus the acts would belong to the natural order, and the help would not need to transcend the merely natural order. The acts would be more difficult than could be performed by fallen man with his powers weakened.

But it can also be the case that those acts have a perfection which exceeds the natural order, and that accordingly the help which God confers gives man the power of performing acts which transcend the powers of nature. And this is the judgment enunciated in the thesis: the acts by which the sinner disposes himself for justification are entitatively supernatural², that is, they belong according to their physical being to that order in which are the grace of justification and the vision of God.

The sense of this doctrine, then, is: God willed that the acts disposing to justification, from the very beginning of faith, be of the strictly supernatural order; and the help necessary for these acts is in the same way in the supernatural order, and therefore in the strict sense undue. This grace, then, is physically necessary for such acts, and it is rightly called elevating grace, since it elevates the faculties of man so that they are capable of producing acts entitatively supernatural.

The supernatural is understood as a gift of God positively undue to created nature and superadded to it. The supernatural is distinguished as to manner, when the gift conferred on the subject is natural but the manner in which it is conferred is undue; as to substance, when the gift itself is positively undue; as relatively supernatural, if it is not undue to every created being; as absolutely supernatural, if it is undue to every created being, or exceeding the order of creatures, and therefore pertaining to the divine order.

The question under this aspect seems to have been explicitly treated chiefly after the Council of Trent, although it was already in some way contained in the doctrine of the earlier theologians. Among the post-Tridentine theologians there is a great consensus in this matter as regards the fact itself³. There is not, however, a consensus of theologians on the question whether to the entitatively supernatural acts of wayfarers there corresponds a proper supernatural formal object which cannot be attained by natural powers⁴. Finally, there is no consensus of theologians in the qualification of this sentence. But the sentence enunciated in the thesis can now, it seems, be called common, or at least the more common, among theologians.

It must be well noted that the thesis treats only of the acts by which the sinner is disposed for justification; the discourse on the acts of the just returns in the third part. Further, if in this thesis the necessity of grace is explained from the fact that the disposing acts are entitatively supernatural, so that grace is necessary as elevating, it is not denied that it is also necessary inasmuch as it strengthens the powers weakened by sin, that is, inasmuch as it is healing; but of this matter it must properly be spoken in the following section.

Proof

I. From the authority of the theologians, who teach this almost commonly.

II. In the preceding thesis it was proved that internal grace is absolutely necessary for the acts disposing to justification, and that not only for being able more easily but for being able simply; but this necessity can be explained only from the fact that the entitative perfection of those acts exceeds the order of the things which are possible by the natural powers of men; therefore those acts are entitatively supernatural.

Proof of the minor: If the matter concerned only entitatively natural acts, which are more difficult than could be performed by the weakened powers of fallen man, grace would properly be necessary for being able more easily, and not for being able simply.

Man after original sin has not lost his liberty, although it has been weakened, and he can, as is shown in the following section, perform naturally honest acts without grace; if, therefore, grace is so necessary for the good acts which prepare for justification that without it it is impossible for man to perform them, there must be found in them some perfection which is not in naturally good acts.

This perfection cannot consist in a mere external divine acceptance, so that a good act performed without grace and a good act performed with grace would differ only in this, that God wills not to accept the former as a disposition for justification, but wills so to accept the latter. For thus it would not remain true that man without grace is unable to perform such an act; for the necessity proved in the preceding thesis seems to be such that something is lacking to the powers of man for performing those acts, which could no longer be said in this hypothesis.

Nor can this perfection consist in this, that the salutary act is performed with greater delight, spiritual relish, and so on; for thus it would no longer be understood why grace is necessary for being able simply; and moreover for salutary acts a special delight or facility is never required as essential.

Finally, the opinion seems excluded which would say that the perfection of the salutary act consists in this, that it is supernatural in becoming, but not in having become; for thus there would be an act which according to its whole entity could be produced even without grace; and moreover an act is disposing not by reason of its origin, but because it is such.

“And so it remains that we say that a good act, as is expedient for salvation, enjoys that perfection which is intrinsically supernatural, that is, intrinsically more excellent than the perfection which can be acquired for acts by the powers of nature; and therefore that the mode of perfection which is signified by the words as is expedient is an intrinsic mode of the act, by which its essence is constituted; and that therefore on account of that perfection which is proper to an intrinsically supernatural act, grace is required that it may be done by us”⁵.

This note of undue gift must still be briefly explained.

1. Actual grace is not due by the exigency of nature itself. According to the Baianists the gifts conferred on Adam in creation were due to integral nature; now, however, they are undue, inasmuch as human nature by sin has positively made itself unworthy of these gifts¹. The Baian propositions have been condemned: “The raising and exaltation of human nature to the fellowship of the divine nature was due to the integrity of the first condition, and therefore must be called natural, and not supernatural.” — “Absurd is the opinion of those who say that man from the beginning, by a certain supernatural and gratuitous gift, was raised above the condition of his nature, so as to worship God supernaturally by faith, hope and charity.” — “By vain and idle men, according to the folly of the philosophers, was devised the sentence, which is to be rejected as Pelagianism, that man was from the beginning so constituted that by gifts superadded to nature he was raised by the bounty of the Creator and adopted as a son of God.” — “False is the opinion of the doctors that the first man could have been created and instituted by God without natural justice”².

Since the elevation of nature into the supernatural order is absolutely undue, it follows that those helps of grace also, which are of that same order, are in the same way undue to nature.

Special in this question is the opinion of the Augustinians. According to them the only ultimate end possible to man is the intuitive vision of God itself; but this end is so sublime that it cannot be attained by the natural powers of man. But God owes it to himself that, if he creates man, he also make possible for him the attainment of his end; otherwise human nature would be more wretched than a non-rational creature, which possesses the powers to attain its end; God therefore owes it, whether by the title of providence or out of fittingness, to give man supernatural helps by which he can arrive at his end³. But this opinion is not to be admitted; for its supposition is not true, namely that the only end possible to man is the intuitive vision of God, and that in rational nature there is a remote right to the heavenly inheritance.

If, therefore, the supernatural order of grace is plainly outside every exigency of human nature, there is in it no positive ordination either to the end itself or to the supernatural means of obtaining it. But since man is an intellectual nature, the possibility of elevation into this order is present. This possibility or capacity immediately means the non-repugnance of such an elevation. Thus in intellectual nature there is an obediential potency for this elevation and for receiving the helps of this order, that is, that potency by which the creature obeys the Creator, so that he can make it fit for something which exceeds the powers of the creature. This obediential potency is passive in the sense that the creature of itself is only capable of receiving those gifts and helps passively; but once grace is received, man can and ought to cooperate actively.

2. From what has been said it follows that by merely natural acts man cannot positively prepare himself to obtain those supernatural helps: he can neither merit them nor positively dispose himself for them. These things have already been proved in the thesis itself; for such acts would be salutary; but salutary acts are strictly supernatural; therefore naturally impossible. Thus for the first supernatural grace there is no positive preparation at all; but with supernatural grace received, man can and ought thereafter, through salutary acts, prepare himself for other graces up to the very attainment of justification.

3. By natural prayers grace cannot be obtained. Petitionary prayer is the asking of things fitting from God. It supposes the desire of the good which is expected from God. The petition is properly the manifestation of this desire, and thereby the manifestation of one's own need; it appeals to the goodness of God, that he may wish to succour this need. The efficacy of prayer, then, is other than the efficacy of merit: merit is a service rendered to another, and as such appeals to his justice or equity; prayer, however, by showing one's own necessity, appeals to mercy. Hence of itself it would not be against the gratuitousness of grace if God willed to be moved to give grace to one who asked for it. That nevertheless by natural prayers grace cannot be obtained is plain:

a) Such prayer supposes the desire of grace; but this cannot be without grace.

b) That prayer would positively avail for salvation, and would therefore be a salutary act; but for a salutary act grace is required; therefore.

c) If a natural petition of grace were efficacious, man would positively dispose himself for grace; for by efficacious prayer we dispose ourselves to receive the gifts of God.

Therefore there is nothing in man but a merely passive potency for receiving the first actual elevating grace.

What the adult sinner can and cannot do without the help of grace.

From the preceding section it is clear that the adult sinner can and must dispose himself for justification by acts entitatively supernatural, performed with the help of grace. Now the question is what he can and cannot do without the help of grace; in other words, what the powers of the sinner avail in the state of fallen nature. The question can be raised both about the powers of the intellect and about the powers of the will. In the treatise “On the One God”, however, it has already been proved at length that by his natural powers man can know God, the principle and end, on whom he depends and to whom he must tend and whom he must worship; here, therefore, we must treat only of the powers of the will, and that not in the merely physical order but in the moral order. Consideration may be given to the sinner who is still in the state of unbelief and to him who is already a believer; the discourse concerns both.

On the opinion of the innovators of the sixteenth century something has been said in the preceding section¹: fallen man cannot do anything but sin.

Baius²: fallen man is incapable of moral good; without grace man necessarily sins; he is moved either by a vicious cupidity, by which the world is loved, or by charity, by which God is loved, poured forth in the heart through the Holy Spirit. All the works of unbelievers are sins, and whatever a sinner or a slave of sin does is sin. But the beginning of charity is conferred on man when, converted from unbelief or from an evil will, he begins to will the good; it can therefore precede the remission of sins itself; hence the catechumen or the penitent can have something of justice before the remission of sins³.

Jansenius⁴: concupiscence is a certain habitual weight by which the soul is inclined to enjoy creatures; but it is lawful only to use creatures. Although after sin free will remains, the will is nevertheless bound to creatures by a certain delightful glue, which it cannot break by its own powers. In the unbelieving man cupidity so reigns that there is no longer freedom to do good and to abstain from sin. As long as a man is not freed by grace, and indeed by the grace of faith, there is a necessity of sinning. The mere absence of faith already suffices for all works to be sins. This necessity of sinning is a necessity as regards specification, but not as regards exercise, that is, whatever he does is sin; but he is not bound to commit any single sin so necessarily that he could not abstain from it; but by abstaining from one he necessarily falls into another, which again he could have avoided, yet only by falling again into another sin.

Both, therefore, Baius and Jansenius, clearly teach: 1) All the works of the unbelieving man are sins; 2) Without grace, man in the state of fallen nature can place no act in the order of morals which is not a sin.

Among Catholic theologians too there are various opinions about what man can do in the state of fallen nature.

The Augustinians. Their doctrine is set out according to Berti⁵, who greatly mitigated the doctrine of the Augustinians. In book 18, chapter 2⁶ he asks “what is to be asserted about the works of those who are destitute of the grace of faith”, and lays down proposition I⁷: “Many things are done even by unbelievers and the impious which, if you consider the honesty of the works and the offices of the virtues, have the beauty of praise, and by reason of the work ought not to be called sins”. Prop. II⁸: “The virtues of unbelievers are for the most part a useless and withering seed,... namely, since the root of cupidity is in their heart, good works are wont to be referred either to empty glory or to pleasure. But in that case no one denies that virtues of this kind are weakened by the vice either of self-love or of dishonesty”. Prop. III⁹: “For another reason too, the things which are done by unbelievers without the grace of Christ cannot be numbered among the virtues, namely, because they contribute nothing to true and Christian piety: whether... by virtues of this kind the mind does not strive towards heavenly beatitude”. Prop. IV¹⁰: “Since the wisdom of the world errs through all its paths,... whatever good the unbelievers have done, they must be said for the most part to have done it not without a supernal illumination: yet habitual faith was not, nor is, necessary for them in order not to sin, nor the grace of the remission of sins”.

Chapter 3¹¹: “it is disputed whether the help of divine grace is required for performing a work morally good, which is vicious neither in itself nor in the intention of the one acting”. He renders the opinion of the Augustinians thus¹²: “In the question which I now propose, the opinion of almost all our countrymen is very celebrated, that man can indeed without a special grace do good from the object, or from the office of virtue considered, as was shown in the first part of the preceding chapter; but if the end be considered, they deny that such a work is good, since it is not referred to the highest good. For they maintain that this condition is necessary for a work which is in no respect vitiated”.

After the question has been discussed he proposes his own opinion, which is a middle course between the opinion of the Augustinians and that of the other theologians¹³: “We adhere to the former (namely, the opinion of the Augustinians) inasmuch as it acknowledges no true and proper virtue which stops at a created thing, since virtue tends to the better good, as Augustine teaches, and the idea of virtue shows: but no creature is better than the rational mind. We deny, however, that the man who acts for the sake of the intimate, natural and inborn idea of honesty does not do good morally, but a work weakened by vice: since there is no vice except from the will of doing what that highest and unchangeable law of truth forbids. We say that this idea of truth and unchangeable law is not wholly worn away in fallen man, and therefore sometimes presents to the mind of men a work to be performed that is lawful and honest, and that the grace of faith is not necessary for this, that is, that God manifest himself as the author of supernatural gifts. We grant that the virtues are proud and inflated if they are referred to themselves, that is, if they are sought in order that the beauty of continence and probity may be conferred on the mind, since then they serve human glory, and have much emptiness: but I deny that they are referred to themselves if they are done for the sake of the inborn reason of honesty; since this reason, being one, highest and unchangeable, is God himself, intimately present to us, not indeed as a special object, but as the universal rule of truth. I say that works consonant with this rule, even if they are not explicitly referred to God, which is necessary for them to lead to eternal life, are referred implicitly; not because the intrinsic goodness of honest works is itself referred to the highest good, for that is necessary and natural, not free and moral; but because by the intention of the mind those works are done for the sake of the intimate law of honesty, which is implicitly God himself. And this I think suffices for a morally good work of the natural order; because for there to be no stain of vice, it suffices that the work be conformed to the law naturally implanted in us.

These things, however, although they are speculatively true and sufficiently clear once the precepts of the Augustinian doctrine have been set out: practically speaking I affirm that fallen man never acts by turning himself to that intimate law without cupidity and self-love, and therefore that any good work whatever is done from a special grace... Therefore, for any work to be honest in practice, it must not swerve from the highest and intimate law. But fallen man takes more delight in himself than in the highest good, unless holy delight be inspired in him; since without the gift of this delight concupiscence prevails over reason: whose desires not to obey... without the grace of the Saviour we cannot. Therefore to cleave to the law that commands honest things, so that the mind does not swell with love of itself, is a benefit of grace, by which the motion of concupiscence is repressed. In the same way one must speak of the shameful delight aroused by the manifold image of temporal things. For the law dwelling in our mortal body, and the changeable variety beating upon fallen man through the bodily senses, unless healing grace come to his aid, seizes and depresses the will. Virtue, then, is a habit of the mind after the manner of nature and consonant with reason. Reason is not extinguished by sin, and the will can also will and act in the things that pertain to the present life. Yet that the force of the affections is naturally in the rational mind, and that at the judgment of the will, whose nod they serve, they are directed either to eternal or to temporal things, is the opinion of Julian, whom the holy Father addresses thus: I do not know where you learned these things. Speculatively, therefore, the last opinion is probable; practically, the other is most true; although neither is the latter to be held with such rigor that a work should be vicious which is not explicitly referred to God. If these things please you less, I have deliberately set before you and adorned the decisions of the Doctors, so that with this lucubration of mine holding the torch before you, you may defend what shall seem to you more consonant with reason”.

Vázquez, in 1, 2, disputation 189, defends that man cannot overcome temptation without the help of grace, and in disp. 190 that for individual good works of acquired moral virtue we need the help of grace through Christ. He sets out his opinion thus¹⁴: Our opinion is “that man can indeed perform individual works of moral virtue without the help of grace through Christ such as is by its own nature of the supernatural order, the kind that is necessary for the works of the infused virtues; but that he cannot perform any moral work good in every respect according to virtue without some help of grace through Christ which is by its own nature of the natural order and is prepared for us by the eternal mercy of God through natural causes: which help indeed we have said is required for the individual temptations to be overcome from the affection of virtue.... In what way this help can be called of the natural order and above nature has been explained in the same place¹⁵”. In that place, however¹⁶, he had said: “We understand a peculiar help of grace which according to itself and its nature is of the natural order; in that God uses natural things to aid our nature for a work which of itself is of the natural order and, as is usually said, proportioned and accommodated to our nature; so that it does not need any other peculiar principle for eliciting it, and yet is called a peculiar help and a gift of grace: because God in his liberality and mercy so instituted all things for our good, although he could, with the gift of creation and conservation remaining entire, without injury and ingratitude, have ruled them in another way, by which he knew that we would consent to sin and evil”.

This grace of the natural order is a congruous thought¹⁷, “For man was so made by God that from nature, by the very fact that he is rational, he is of free will: that is, not bound to one kind of operation, nor to one side, but such that by various and contrary thoughts his will can be moved to various and contrary things: and likewise concerning the same thing it can be moved and not moved; and since it is not in his own power to be occupied first by this thought rather than by that, but in this respect depends on God alone, who knows best how to send in such a thought as he knows the will will consent, in the thing proposed, or will not consent; nor is it bound to this by the gift of creation, it comes about that it is a peculiar benefit to him, and that he obtains a peculiar grace from God, if he is prevented by that thought against the thought from which God knows that his will will resist, and will not succumb to the temptation, and without which he knows that it will altogether consent to the temptation. This thought, therefore, so fitted to the will that it holds it back from consent to the temptation, and attracts it to a zealous affection against it, was not due to creation nor to the conservation of nature: because, with the gift of creation unharmed and nature altogether unharmed, and produced and conserved entire in its nature, God could without any force, injury or ingratitude so dispose the rest that in such an occasion a more vehement thought against the temptation should not be granted to man, by which he would be held back from consent: but he could leave him with that thought with which he rightly knows that his will will consent to the temptation; which indeed, although God should do it, as he could, man would nevertheless remain a debtor to him, on account of the gift of creation and conservation”.

That this help is through Christ he shows thus¹⁸: “First, because that is called grace through Christ which Christ died to merit for us from God... Since therefore no one can deny that Christ died to obtain for us grace against individual temptations, lest we succumb even to the least, which in fact we overcome, we must necessarily confess that the grace by which we overcome individual temptations is through Christ. For although Christ did not merit that all natural things be created and made, as the more probable opinion holds, nevertheless their disposition and order, inasmuch as they conduce in some part to living rightly, we cannot fail to attribute to the grace of Christ, who died to reform us in good morals and to free us from the snares of the devil. Secondly, because, unless such grace were through Christ, we should ineptly ask it of God through the merits of Christ. Thirdly, because, unless this grace were through Christ, we could glory in some victory without Christ and should ineptly give him thanks for the victory over individual temptations. Fourthly, because unless this grace were through Christ, we should not say that by it we are freed from the power of the devil, to whom we had been handed over by the sin of Adam, that he might harass us with various temptations”¹⁹.

Vázquez, therefore, does not derive the necessity of “grace” from some special infirmity of man in the state of fallen nature, but from the fact that man cannot will freely without a preceding thought; the thought which the will follows, by which man overcomes temptation or places a morally good act, is a congruous thought. God by his providence has freely ordained that this or that thought be found in man, which he himself knows to be congruous or not congruous. In no way, therefore, is the doctrine of Vázquez akin to Augustinism²⁰.

These various opinions having been set out, the question is asked in this section what the adult sinner in the present order can do without the help of grace, and what he cannot. We answer with two theses: 1) that he has not indeed lost the capacity for placing morally good acts (thes. 10); but 2) that without grace he cannot keep the whole divine law, but will certainly arrive at mortal sins (thes. 11). To these two we prefix the thesis (thes. 9) which theologians are especially wont to state explicitly on account of the errors of the Baianists and Jansenists, although as to essentials it is already contained in what has been said in the preceding section, namely that not all the works of unbelievers and sinners are sins.

It is clear that in this thesis the discourse is about human acts, that is, about free acts, with the necessary advertence of reason. The thesis therefore says that in unbelievers and sinners there are found also acts either indifferent, if such are possible in the individual, or morally good acts. In practice the discourse is about the latter. The thesis, however, does not of itself further determine whether those good acts are salutary or only morally good, whether they are placed with the help of grace or without it. The sense of the thesis can also be rendered thus: habitual grace is not required for good works, nor is faith; or thus: works are not sins for the reason that the subject acting is in a state of unbelief or of sin.

The innovators of the sixteenth century, the Baianists and the Jansenists deny the thesis, as is clear from what has been said above.

As to the matter itself, the question has already been solved in the preceding section; for both unbelievers and believing sinners must dispose themselves for justification by good acts with the help of grace. Nor is this necessity to be restricted to believing sinners only, but it holds also of unbelievers; for certain salutary acts precede the very reception of faith, acts which are comprehended under the name “the beginning of faith”.

THE DOCUMENTS OF THE CHURCH

From the Council of Trent there pertain here the things brought forward above in thesis 6, part II. See pag. 141 f. Specifically the opposite opinion is condemned in can. 7: “If anyone says that all works done before justification, in whatever way they are done, are truly sins or merit the hatred of God; or that the more earnestly anyone strives to dispose himself for grace, the more grievously he sins: let him be anathema”¹.

PIUS V condemned the following propositions of Baius. Prop. 25: “All the works of unbelievers are sins, and the virtues of the philosophers are vices”. — Prop. 35: “Whatever a sinner or a slave of sin does is sin”. — Prop. 38: “Every love of a rational creature is either a vicious cupidity, by which the world is loved, which John forbids, or that praiseworthy charity by which God is loved, poured forth in the heart through the Holy Spirit”. — Prop. 40: “In all his acts the sinner serves the ruling cupidity”².

ALEXANDER VIII condemned the following errors of the Jansenists, 1: “In the state of fallen nature, for mortal (formal) sin and demerit that liberty suffices by which it was voluntary and free in its cause, namely in original sin and in the will of Adam sinning”. — 2: “Even though invincible ignorance of the natural law be granted, in the state of fallen nature it does not excuse the one acting from formal sin”.

— 7: “Every deliberate human action is either the love of God or the love of the world: if of God, it is the charity of the Father; if of the world, it is the concupiscence of the flesh, that is, it is evil”. — 8: “It is necessary that the unbeliever sin in every work”. — 11: “Everything that is not from Christian supernatural faith, which works through love, is sin”³.

Clement XI condemned the errors of Paschasius Quesnel. 38: “The sinner is not free except to evil, without the grace of the Liberator”. — 45: “The love of God no longer reigning in the heart of sinners, it is necessary that carnal cupidity reign in it and corrupt all his actions”. — 59: “The prayer of the impious is a new sin; and what God grants them is a new judgment”⁴.

Pius VI condemned the errors of the synod of Pistoia concerning the twofold love. “23: The doctrine of the synod concerning the twofold love, of ruling cupidity and ruling charity, declaring that man without grace is under the power of sin and that in that state, through the general influx of ruling cupidity, he infects and corrupts all his actions; inasmuch as it insinuates that in man, while he is under the servitude or in the state of sin, destitute of that grace by which he is freed from the servitude of sin and is constituted a son of God, cupidity so rules that through its general influx all his actions are in themselves infected and corrupted, or that all works which are done before justification, in whatever way they are done, are sins; as if in all his acts the sinner served the ruling cupidity: — false, pernicious, leading into the error condemned by Trent as heretical, and again condemned in Baius art. 40. — 24: But in that part in which between ruling cupidity and ruling charity no middle affections are placed, implanted in nature itself and praiseworthy by their own nature, which have remained together with the love of beatitude and the natural propensity to good as the last lineaments and relics of the image of God; as if between the divine love which leads us to the kingdom and the illicit human love which is condemned there were no lawful human love which is not reprehended: — false, otherwise condemned”⁵.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

Dan 4, 24: Nebuchadnezzar the king (an unbeliever) is admonished by Daniel: “Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to thee, and redeem thou thy sins with alms, and thy iniquities with works of mercy to the poor: perhaps he will forgive thy offences”. — Scripture exhorts sinners to do penance: Ez 18, 30: “Return, and do penance for all your iniquities: and iniquity shall not be your ruin”. Cf. Eccli 21, 1; Zach 1, 3; others above pag. 143. — Rahab the harlot, who hid the spies⁶, is praised for her faith and works, Hebr 11, 31; Iac 2, 25. — To Cyrus king of the Persians (an unbeliever) the Lord commanded that he build him a house in Jerusalem⁷, of whom the Lord says: “Thou art my shepherd, and thou shalt fulfil all my will”⁸, — Of the Egyptian midwives (unbelievers), to whom the king had commanded to kill the males of the Hebrews, it is said: “But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded, but saved the men children... Therefore God dealt well with the midwives... and because the midwives feared God, he built them houses”⁹. — Manasses the king for his impieties had been led captive to Babylon. “And after that he was in distress he prayed to the Lord his God: and did penance exceedingly before the God of his fathers. And he entreated him, and besought him earnestly: and he heard his prayer, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom, and Manasses knew that the Lord was God”¹⁰. — The publican¹¹ and Zacchaeus¹² are proposed as examples.

Rom 1, 18 ff.: the Gentiles could know God from created things, and they ought according to this knowledge to worship God and give him thanks; and if they did not do this, it is their fault. — Rom 2, 14: “For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do naturally those things that are of the law, such as have not the law are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them, and their thoughts between themselves accusing or also defending them, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, according to my gospel, by Jesus Christ”¹³. Therefore the Gentiles have a knowledge and conscience of moral good and evil such that they are responsible in the judgment of God; and sometimes they do the things that are of the law. Therefore there can be found in them acts which are not sins.

THE FATHERS

Since the Fathers teach that sinners merit the clemency of God by their acts¹⁴ and acknowledge in sinners acts done with divine help, without doubt they do not hold all the acts of sinners to be sins.

ST GREGORY NAZIANZEN: “He (namely, his deceased father) was ours even before he had come over to our fold¹⁵. For his manner of life won him to us. For as many of our own are not with us, whom, that is, their life removes from the common body, so on the contrary many of those outside belong to us, whoever, namely, put faith after morals, and lack only the name while they hold the thing itself. In that number was my father too, a branch indeed alien, but stretching out to us by his life”¹⁶.

ST AUGUSTINE: “Charity is one thing divine, another human; human charity is one thing lawful, another unlawful... First, therefore, I speak of human charity that is lawful, which is not reprehended; then of human charity that is unlawful, which is condemned; thirdly of divine charity, which leads us to the kingdom. That I may therefore briefly suggest it: lawful is the human charity by which a wife is loved; unlawful that by which a harlot or another man's wife is loved... Have therefore lawful charity: it is human; but, as I said, it is lawful. Nor is it lawful only in the sense that it is conceded, but it is lawful in the sense that if it be lacking, it is reprehended. Be it lawful for you to love your spouses with human charity, to love your children, to love your friends, to love your fellow citizens. For all these names have the bond of kinship, and as it were the glue of charity. But you see that this charity can belong also to the impious, that is, to pagans, Jews, heretics. For who of them does not love his wife, his children, his brothers, his neighbours, his relatives, his friends, etc.? This charity, then, is human. If therefore anyone is carried away by such cruelty that he loses even the affection of human love, and does not love his children, and does not love his wife, he is not even to be numbered among men. For he is not to be praised who loves his children; but he is to be condemned who does not love his children. For let him still consider with whom this love ought to be common to him. The wild beasts love their children: the serpents love their children, the tigers love their children, the lions love their children. For there is no beast that does not murmur gently to its children... Therefore he who does not love his children is worse even than a lion. These things are human, and they are lawful”¹⁷.

Epistle 138, 17 praises the works of the early Romans: “Thanks be to the Lord our God, who against these evils sent us a singular help. For whom would that river of the horrible wickedness of the human race not sweep away, whom would it not involve, into what depth would it not plunge him, unless the cross of Christ were fixed more eminently and firmly in so great a mass, as it were, of authority; laying hold of whose strength we might stand, lest, carried away by the vast whirlpool of this world of those who persuade evil or impel to evil, we be swallowed up? For into that sink of the worst morals and of the old ruined discipline, the heavenly authority especially ought to have come and brought aid, which would persuade voluntary poverty, continence, benevolence, justice and concord, and true piety, and the other luminous and strong virtues of life; not only for the sake of passing this life most honourably, nor only for the sake of the most concordant fellowship of the earthly city; but also for the sake of obtaining eternal salvation, and the heavenly and divine commonwealth of a certain eternal people, whose citizens faith, hope and charity make us: so that, as long as we are pilgrims from it, we may bear with those, if we cannot correct them, who wish the commonwealth to stand with vices unpunished, which the early Romans established and increased by their virtues, although they had not true piety towards the true God, which could also lead them into the eternal city by a wholesome religion; yet preserving a certain probity of their own kind, which could suffice for establishing, increasing and preserving the earthly city. For God thus showed in the most opulent and illustrious empire of the Romans how much civil virtues avail even without true religion, so that it might be understood that with this added men become citizens of another city, whose king is truth, whose law is charity, whose measure is eternity”¹⁸.

ST FULGENTIUS: “That law of works, which cannot justify man, since by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified, can indeed be naturally in the heart of the Gentiles and in the heart of unbelieving Jews; yet without the faith of Christ it in no way justifies its followers, but holds them bound by the chain of impiety”¹⁹.

THE THEOLOGIANS

THE MASTER OF THE SENTENCES²⁰, asking “whether every intention or action of unbelievers is evil”, lays down two opinions: “And since intention, as has been said above, makes the work good, and faith directs the intention, it may not unreasonably be asked whether every intention and every work of those who have not faith is evil. For if faith directs the intention, and the intention makes the work good, where there is no faith neither the intention nor the work seems to be good. This is asserted not unreasonably by some, who say that all the actions and wills of a man without faith are evil, which, faith being had, exist as good... Others indeed, who make a threefold distinction of acts, assert that all works which are done for the support of nature are always good. But what Augustine says, that they are evil if they have evil causes, is not so to be taken as though they were themselves evil, but because they sin and are evil who do them for an evil end. Likewise that other point too, namely that ‘intention makes the work good, and faith directs the intention’, they determine by saying that the good there named is what is rewardable unto life, not that this alone is a good work, but that even many other things are good, although not for the reason by which that is done”.

ST BONAVENTURE, in doubt 2 on the letter of the Master, answers: “It must be said that unbelievers do not sin in every action of theirs; for when their action is not repugnant to faith nor to good morals, there is no reason why there should be sin in it. What therefore is said in the letter, that ‘all the life of unbelievers is sin’, must be said not because every action which they perform in their whole life is culpable and demeritorious, but this is said because by no action which they perform are they freed from guilt as long as they persist in unbelief”.

On the same text of the Master St THOMAS notes in his exposition of the text: “What is asserted by some irrationally²¹ etc. If it be understood that any action whatever is evil and sin, the opinion is irrational; but if it be understood that whatever they do, they always remain in sin while they are without faith, the opinion is rational”. In question 1, article 2 he says: “it is not necessary that every act of theirs be evil, but only that it be of deficient goodness, just as although a horse falls short of the rationality which man has, it is not therefore evil, but has a goodness deficient from the goodness of man”. In the Summa 2, 2, q. 10 a. 4 he asks whether every action of an unbeliever is sin, and answers: “Mortal sin takes away sanctifying grace, but does not wholly corrupt the good of nature; whence, since unbelief is a certain mortal sin, unbelievers indeed lack grace, yet there remains in them some good of nature; whence it is manifest that unbelievers cannot do the good works which are from grace, namely meritorious works; yet the good works for which the good of nature suffices they can in some way do; whence it is not necessary that they sin in every work of theirs, but whenever they do any work from unbelief, then they sin; for as one who has faith can commit some sin in an act which he does not refer to the end of faith, sinning either venially or even mortally, so too an unbeliever can do some good act in that which he does not refer to the end of unbelief”.

Objections

1. Matth 7, 17 ff. “So every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit”. Therefore a sinner cannot do good works.

I answer. a) The Lord warns his hearers to beware of evil prophets, “who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves”. That such they are is known from their fruits (v. 20). A true prophet sent by God, and his doctrine, does not produce evil fruits; but those who feign themselves prophets betray themselves by evil works. In the context, therefore, the discourse is not about our question²².

b) If the text is understood universally of the works of sinners, a distinction could be made: those which he does as a sinner, I grant; those which he does as one who is a sinner, I deny.

c) For the text to prove anything for the opposite opinion, it would have to be understood universally and exclusively, that is, the sense would have to be: a good tree can bring forth only good fruits, an evil tree only evil; and the application to human works would be: the just man can only act well, he cannot sin; the sinner, however, can only sin. But it is evident that the just man can sin, nor is this denied by the adversaries.

2. Hebr 11, 6: “But without faith it is impossible to please God”. Therefore the acts of unbelievers do not please God, they are evil. — I answer. Without faith man cannot please God, that is, come to justice, I grant; without faith every work of man is a new sin, I deny.

3. But every work which is not from faith is sin. Rom 14, 23: “But all that is not of faith is sin”. — I answer. In the context the discourse is clearly not about the faith by which one believes in Christ, but about conscience and its dictate (v. 2: “for one believeth that he may eat all things”; cf. 1 Cor 8. 10-12). If therefore the text is applied to the works of unbelievers, it is to be understood according to Rom 2, 14 ff., namely that the Gentiles too have a law inscribed in their hearts; if they act against it, they sin and are responsible in the judgment of God. The Fourth Lateran Council employs the text to show the necessity of good faith in prescription²³ therefore “not from faith” is the same as “not from a good faith”, “without good faith”²⁴.

4. But St Augustine explicitly teaches that all works outside faith are sins, and applies Rom 14, 23 in this sense.

I answer. a) It is true that St Augustine so applied those words, to show against the Pelagians that grace is necessary. “However much the works of unbelievers be extolled, we know the sentence of the same apostle to be true and invincible: All that is not of faith is sin. Hence he often says that justice is imputed to us not from works but from faith, since rather faith works through love, lest anyone think that faith itself is attained by the merits of works, when it is itself the beginning from which good works begin; because, as has been said, what is not from it is sin”²⁵. “Not therefore, as certain men say that we say, and as he dares besides to write, are all men forced into sin as it were unwillingly by the necessity of their flesh; but if they are already of an age to use the judgment of their own mind, they are both held in sin by their own will, and are hurled from sin into sin by their own will. For he who persuades and deceives does not work in them except that they commit sin by their will, either by ignorance of the truth, or by delight in iniquity, or by both evils, of blindness and of infirmity. But this will which is free in evils, because it delights in evils, is therefore not free in goods, because it has not been liberated. Nor can man will anything good, unless he be helped by him who cannot will evil, that is, by the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. For all that is not of faith is sin. And by this, the good will which withdraws itself from sin is faithful, because the just man lives by faith. But to faith it belongs to believe in Christ. And no one can believe in him, that is, come to him, unless it be given him. No one therefore can have a good and just will, unless, with no merits preceding, he has received the true, that is, the gratuitous grace from above”²⁶. From these examples it appears that St Augustine does indeed apply this text to the works of unbelievers, but does not properly give its exegetical explanation; in this application, however, the consensus of the Fathers is not had²⁷.

b) That true virtues are not found in unbelievers St Augustine expounds against the Pelagians, who say that “those alien to the faith abound in virtues, in whom without the help of grace there is only the good of nature, though enslaved to superstitions, who by the mere powers of inborn liberty are often found merciful, modest, chaste and sober”²⁸. To these Augustine says: “But far be it that there be true virtue in anyone unless he be just. And far be it that anyone be truly just unless he live by faith: for the just man lives by faith²⁹. Who moreover of those who wish to be considered Christians, except the Pelagians alone, or perhaps even among them you alone, would have called an unbeliever just, called an impious man just, called a man enslaved to the devil just? Let him be Fabricius, let him be Fabius, let him be Scipio, let him be Regulus, by whose names you thought I was to be frightened, as though we were speaking in the ancient Roman senate-house. Yet in this cause, even if you appeal to the school of Pythagoras or of Plato, where most erudite and most learned men, ennobled by a far more excellent philosophy than the rest, said that there are no true virtues except those which are in some way imprinted on the mind by the form of that eternal and unchangeable substance which is God; even there against you, as much as he grants who has called us, I will cry out with the freedom of piety: Nor is there true justice in them. The just man lives by faith. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ: the end of the law is Christ unto justice to every one that believeth³⁰. How are they truly just, to whom the humility of the true just man is cheap? For the further they approached by understanding, the further they withdrew by pride: because knowing God, they did not glorify him as God, or give thanks; but they became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools³¹. How is there true justice in them, in whom there is no true wisdom? Which if we grant them, there will be no reason why we should not say that they too come to that kingdom, of which it is written: The desire of wisdom brings to the kingdom³². And by this Christ died in vain, if men come without the faith of Christ to the true faith, to true virtue, to true justice, to true wisdom, by any other thing or any other way. Just as the Apostle says most truly of the law: If justice be by the law, then Christ died in vain³³, so it is most truly said: If justice be by nature and the will, then Christ died in vain. If by the doctrines of men there be any justice whatever, then Christ died in vain. For by what there is true justice, by that same there is also the kingdom of God. For God himself, which be far from us, would be unjust, if a true just man were not admitted to his kingdom: since his kingdom is itself justice, as it is written: The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but justice, and peace, and joy³⁴. Moreover if the impious have not true justice, assuredly neither have they the other virtues, its companions and associates, if they have any, as true (because when the gifts of God are not referred to their author, by that very fact those who use them evilly are made unjust): and by this neither is continence or chastity a true virtue in the impious”³⁵.

Nr. 21. “Know therefore that virtues are to be discerned from vices not by their offices but by their ends. For an office is what is to be done; an end is that for the sake of which it is to be done. When therefore a man does something in which he does not seem to sin, if he does it not for that for the sake of which he ought to do it, he is convicted of sinning. Which you not attending to, you separated ends from offices, and said that true virtues are offices without ends. From which so great an absurdity follows upon you that you are compelled to call true justice even that whose mistress you find to be avarice. For indeed for the hand to abstain from another's property, if you consider the office, can seem to be of justice; but when it is asked why it is done, and the answer is: lest more money be lost in lawsuits, how can this deed now be of true justice, since it serves avarice? Such virtues Epicurus brought in as handmaids of pleasure, which whatever they did, they did for the sake of obtaining it or keeping it. But far be it that true virtues serve anyone, except him or for his sake to whom we say: O God of hosts, convert us³⁶. Hence the virtues which serve carnal delights, or any temporal conveniences and emoluments, cannot be altogether true. But those which wish to serve nothing, neither are they themselves true. For true virtues serve God in men, by whom they are given to men; they serve God in the angels, by whom they are given also to the angels. But whatever good is done by a man, and is not done for that for the sake of which true wisdom commands it to be done, even if it seem good by its office, it is sin by its own wrong end. (22) Some good things therefore can be done by those who do not do them well. For it is good that a man in danger be helped, especially an innocent man: but he who does this, if by loving the glory of men rather than of God he does it, does not do the good well; because he does not do it as a good man, since he does it not with a good will. For far be it that the will be or be called good which glories in others, or in itself, and not in the Lord. And by this neither is this fruit of it to be called good; for an evil tree does not bring forth good fruits; but rather it is the good work of him who does good even through evil men. Wherefore it cannot be said how much this opinion of yours deceives you, by which you said that “all virtues are affections by which we are fruitfully or barrenly good”. For it cannot be that we are barrenly good: but we are not good whatever we are barrenly. For a good tree brings forth good fruits. But far be it that God, who is good, from whom the axe is prepared for the trees that do not bring forth good fruit, should cut down and send into the fire the good trees. In no way therefore are men barrenly good: but those who are not good can be, some less, some more, evil”³⁷.

And when Julian had said that men are barrenly good, “who, not doing for God's sake the good things they do, do not obtain eternal life from him”, Augustine answers: “Certainly, since at least you concede that the works of unbelievers, which seem to you to be good, do not nevertheless lead them to eternal salvation and the kingdom; know that we say that that good of men, that good will, that good work, cannot be conferred on anyone without the grace of God which is given through the one Mediator of God and men, through which alone man can be led to the eternal house and kingdom of God. All other things therefore which seem to have some praise among men, let them seem to you true virtues, let them seem good works, and done without any sin. As far as I am concerned, this I know, that a good will does not do them: for the will of an unbeliever and impious man is not good. Let such wills be called by you good trees, it suffices that they are barren before God, and by this not good; let them be fruitful among men, among whom they are even good, with you as author, you as praiser, if you wish even as planter; provided that, whether you will or no, I obtain this, that the love of the world, by which each one is a friend of this world, is not from God; and the love of enjoying any creatures whatever without the love of the Creator is not from God; but the love of God by which one comes to God is not except from God the Father through Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit. By this love of the Creator each one uses even creatures well. Without this love of the Creator, no one uses any creatures well”³⁸.

So St Augustine in the place where he treats this question on purpose. First of all it appears that he speaks of the merely natural acts of unbelievers, done without grace; for the principal argument is: if anything good were found, it would be without grace, and Christ would have died in vain. In these words therefore nothing is said directly about the acts of unbelievers which were placed under the influx of grace. Moreover Augustine supposes that unbelievers act with an unbelieving and impious will, and hence that their acts are sins. The defect of those acts which seem to be virtuous lies in this, that they are not well done, because they are done for an evil end (not to glory in God, avarice, pride, pleasure). Finally Augustine understands good works as fruitful works; barren good works he does not admit. A good work, then, for him is one that contributes to salvation. So much for what he has in the work against Julian.

How the whole doctrine of St Augustine on the works of unbelievers is to be understood and explained is set out in various ways by Catholic theologians. It hardly seems possible to give a single explanation, or to establish a single principle from which all things may be explained; but the different explanations must complete one another³⁹.

a) The works of unbelievers are sins inasmuch as they not only are not from faith but proceed from unbelief. So without doubt often in the work “Against Julian”. Sometimes, however, the mind of St Augustine seems to be that precisely because of the defect of faith the unbeliever already acts with an unbelieving will. St Bonaventure, in 2 dist. 41 doubt 2; St Thomas 2, 2 q. 10 a. 4 ad 1: “That word⁴⁰ is to be understood either because the life of unbelievers cannot be without sin, since sins are not taken away by faith; or because whatever they do from unbelief is sin”.

b) The works of unbelievers are called sins because there is lacking to them that perfection, the ordering to God, which they ought to have in the present order. So many Catholics against the Protestants and Jansenists. So too many things in St Augustine can be understood.

c) Just as man before justification is found in habitual sin, in original sin, deprived of sanctifying grace, which privation truly has the character of fault, so too in all the acts of such a man there is a similar defect, they are deprived of that supernatural goodness which ought to be present, which defect is in like manner culpable, as is original sin itself; hence those acts can rightly be called sins. They are not indeed a new personal sin, nor a new fault, but they are comprehended under the fault of original sin. So Ernst, whom Lange follows.

d) Against the semi-Pelagians the Fathers altogether admitted salutary acts which lead to and prepare faith itself; but to these acts they could not suppose faith itself already formal without open contradiction; therefore they undoubtedly acknowledged acts not sinful before faith properly so called. When therefore they say that whatever is not from faith is sin, the name of faith is to be understood in them in a broader sense, for a faithful and devout will towards God. “A man, as often as he acts honestly and follows the dictate of his conscience, acknowledges a law over himself, to which he subjects himself; but this law is God himself, dictating what is to be done and what is to be omitted.

Therefore the man who acts honestly submits himself to God speaking. This is therefore some faith, broadly so called, it is a will faithful towards God and a certain initial pious affection of belief. In this sense the Apostle calls the obedience given to the dictate of conscience faith: All that is not of faith is sin”⁴¹. So Scheeben⁴² developing and modifying the opinion of Ripalda⁴³, whom (Scheeben) Pesch seems to have followed.

5. Man is directed in his acts either by divine charity or by evil worldly cupidity; but the sinner and the unbeliever, since they do not have divine charity, are necessarily led by worldly cupidity; therefore they sin in every work.

I answer. The supposition of the whole argumentation must be denied. For it is false that a just man always acts from charity towards God; for he can sin mortally and lose charity, and he can sin venially and remain in charity. For free will remains in him for good and for evil. Similarly, he who does not have charity remains free and can not sin, and that the more if he is helped by divine grace, which is not denied to sinners. As the habit of charity ought not necessarily to influence every act, so neither should the habit of earthly cupidity, if the sinner has acquired such a habit.

6. A good act ought to be ordered to God as the last end; but an unbeliever cannot order his act to God; therefore from the defect of intention his act is always evil.

I answer. I distinguish the major: it ought to be ordered to God explicitly, I deny; implicitly, inasmuch as it is placed as conformed to the norm of honesty, according to the dictate of conscience, I grant. The minor can be simply denied; for the unbeliever has or can have knowledge of the true God, and so it is not impossible for him to refer his act explicitly to God; but if he had no knowledge of God at all, this would not be without his own fault, and on the supposition of such ignorance he could indeed not refer his act explicitly to God. But even if it is not explicitly referred to God, the act can be honest, if a man acts according to the dictate of conscience. For in this law inscribed in the heart of all men the will of God is manifested, and the man who acts according to this law obeys God and acts honestly.

This thesis asks what the natural powers of man are worth in the moral order after original sin. According to the doctrine of the innovators of the sixteenth century, human nature has been inwardly corrupted by sin and no longer has liberty for good acts; similarly, in the doctrine of Baius and Jansenius, fallen man without grace cannot but sin. These errors have for the most part been dealt with already in the preceding thesis. But among Catholic theologians the Augustinians¹ affirm that without the help of grace every moral act of fallen man, although by its object and proximate end it can be good, nevertheless, with the last end in view, is not good but is always vitiated, at least by an evil love of self, by philautia; in the more restricted form which Berti proposes, it is conceded that a good act is possible in speculation, but not in practice. Yet this opinion does not seem to be admitted.

“Acts naturally honest”: Since morally indifferent acts are not found in the individual, the free acts of man are either morally good or morally evil; good acts can in themselves be either supernaturally good, that is, salutary acts, or merely naturally good, that is, honest acts, which lack the perfection proper to salutary acts; of these acts the thesis speaks. They are therefore natural acts, which are conformed to the natural norm of morals. The thesis does not say that all acts of this kind can be placed without the help of grace, but only that there are such acts as can be placed.

“By natural powers, without the help of grace”: Even in the state of fallen nature the physical and moral powers are present, such that those acts can be placed, that is: these acts do not exceed the physical and moral powers of fallen man. There is not required, therefore, an undue help of grace, by which the physical or moral powers of fallen man would be increased.

“Can”: The question is only about the power, not whether in fact such acts are found, or whether God always helps man by his grace, although this help is not necessary.

The thesis is laid down as morally certain².

The documents of the Church

St Pius V, Baius prop. 37: “He agrees with Pelagius, who acknowledges something naturally good, that is, which takes its origin from the powers of nature alone”³.

Clement XI, error 2 of Paschasius Quesnel: “The grace of Jesus Christ, the efficacious principle of every kind of good, is necessary for every good work: without it not only is nothing done, but nothing can be done”⁴. Error 39: “The will, which grace does not go before, has no light except to go astray, no ardour except to cast itself down, no strength except to wound itself; it is capable of every evil and incapable of any good”⁵.

The Fathers

ST AUGUSTINE: “Yet because the image of God in the human soul has not been so far worn away by the stain of earthly affections that no traces of it, as it were its last lineaments, have remained, whence it can deservedly be said that even in the very impiety of his life a man does some things of the law or understands them; if this is what was said, that the Gentiles who have not the law, that is, the law of God, do naturally the things that are of the law, and that men of this kind are a law to themselves and have the written work of the law in their hearts, that is, that what was impressed there through the image of God when they were created has not been wholly erased: even so that difference will not be disturbed, by which the New Testament is distant from the Old, in that through the New the law of God is written in the heart of the faithful, which through the Old was written on tables. For that is written there through renewal which has not been wholly erased through age. For just as the image of God itself is renewed in the mind of believers through the New Testament, which impiety had not utterly abolished; for there had remained, surely, that which the soul of man cannot but be, namely rational: so too there the law of God, not erased in every part through injustice, is assuredly written anew through grace. Nor could the law written on tables effect in the Jews that inscription, which is justification, but only prevarication.

For they too were men, and that power of nature was in them, by which a rational soul both perceives and does something lawful: but piety, which transfers to another life, blessed and eternal, has a law immaculate, converting souls⁶, that they may be renewed from that light, and there be done in them, The light of thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us⁷. Whence, being turned away, they deserved to grow old: but to be renewed they cannot except by Christian grace, that is, except by the intercession of the Mediator. For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a redemption for all. From whose grace if those are alien of whom we speak, who after that manner of which we have said enough above do naturally the things that are of the law; what will their excusing thoughts profit them, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men⁸, unless perhaps that they be punished more mildly? For as certain venial sins, without which this life is not led, do not hinder the just man from eternal life: so some good works, without which the life of any man, even the worst, is with the greatest difficulty found, profit the impious nothing unto eternal salvation”⁹.

St Augustine therefore acknowledges in the Gentiles honest works which were done without the grace of Christ, and which accordingly do not contribute to salvation; he admits not only the power but also the actual doing of such acts. The same doctrine is found in the texts cited in the preceding thesis¹⁰; cf. De peccatorum meritis et remissione, lib. 1 cap. 22 nr. 31¹¹.

ST FULGENTIUS: “That law of works, which cannot justify man, since by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified, can indeed be naturally in the heart of the Gentiles and in the heart of unbelieving Jews; yet without the faith of Christ it in no way justifies its followers, but holds them bound by the chain of impiety”¹².

REASON

The Augustinians concede the power for acts insofar as they are honest by their object and proximate end, and this seems evident; for those acts, being natural, do not exceed the physical natural powers; moreover some of them are so easy that the moral power to place them cannot be denied either. “Indeed for many men it is easier to show to their parents the love that is owed, to speak the truth, to give alms to the needy out of mercy, than to place the contrary evil acts”¹³. But the ordination to the last end which is required in an honest act can also be present. For that ordination already suffices which consists in this, that a man in acting follows the dictate of conscience¹⁴.

Further, it cannot be denied that an explicit ordination to God as last end is also naturally possible. For by natural reason alone man can know God as his last end in such a way that there arises in him the obligation of worshipping God and of tending to him; but no reason appears for denying the power, in consequence of this knowledge, of ordaining to this end an act honest in itself, so that one would have to say that all men are morally so corrupted that in an act good in itself they must necessarily turn away from God the last end, and vitiate that act by pride or by an evil love of self or in some other way. For the image of God is not wholly worn away in man.

Objections

1. The texts of the holy Fathers are brought forward, chiefly those of St Augustine and of his disciples, in which it is said that free will avails only for sinning. For example, St Augustine: “Neither does free will avail for anything but sinning, if the way of truth lies hidden; and when that which is to be done and to be striven for has begun not to lie hidden, unless it also delights and is loved, it is not done, it is not undertaken, it is not lived well. But in order that it be loved, the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, not through free will, which rises from ourselves, but through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us”¹⁵.

I answer. The texts are in part to be understood in that sense, as is the doctrine which says that all things which unbelievers do are sins¹⁶. Sometimes, however, by such words it is declared that a man, unless he is helped by grace, certainly comes to sin¹⁷.

2. The Council of Orange, can. 22: “Concerning the things which are man's own. No one has of his own but lying and sin. But if a man has anything of truth and justice, it is from that fountain which we ought to thirst for in this desert, that being watered from it as by certain drops we may not fail on the way”¹⁸.

I answer. The canon is sentence 323 of those which Prosper culled from the works of St Augustine¹⁹; it is found in tractate 5 on the Gospel of John: “As the Lord willed, we have come to the day of our promise; he will grant this also, that we may be able to come to the fulfilment of that promise itself. For then those things which we say, if they are useful both to us and to you, are from him; but the things which are from man are lies; as our Lord Jesus Christ himself said: He who speaks a lie speaks of his own²⁰. No one has of his own but lying and sin. But if a man has anything of truth and justice, it is from that fountain which we ought to thirst for in this desert, that being watered from it as by certain drops, and meanwhile consoled in this pilgrimage, we may not fail on the way, and may be able to come to his rest and satiety. If therefore he who speaks a lie speaks of his own, he who speaks the truth speaks of God. John is truthful, Christ is the truth; John is truthful, but every truthful man is truthful from the truth: if therefore John is truthful, and a man cannot be truthful except from the truth; from whom was he truthful, except from him who said: I am the truth?”²¹

It is disputed among Catholics about the sense of canon 22²². Ernst wishes to understand it according to his explanation of the doctrine of St Augustine, that all the works of unbelievers are sins²³. — Scheeben thinks that the discourse is not specifically about man in the state of fallen nature, but about man in general, and that the sense is: if a man acts of his own, that is, according to his own judgment and his own will, and not according to the judgment and will of God, he sins; for there is neither truth nor goodness except dependently and under the influx of the fountain of all truth and goodness, God. Hence also canon 23: “Concerning the will of God and of man. Men do their own will, not God's, when they do what displeases God; but when they do what they will, in order to serve the divine will, although they act willingly what they act, it is nevertheless the will of him by whom both is prepared and is commanded what they will”²⁴. — De Blic interprets: that which a man has as his own is only sin; justice comes to him from grace²⁵.

On the opinion of Father Vazquez. It is true in this opinion that without congruous grace no honest act is done; further, that just as all things which are in the world and happen, so too the fact that a man has a congruous thought rather than one that is not congruous, is under divine providence; moreover, that a congruous thought is a greater good and a greater benefit than a thought that is not congruous. And all these things, as is clear, are conceded by theologians.

But it can be asked whether these things already suffice for this, that every congruous thought is truly grace, an undue gift, indeed the grace which Christ merited for us on the cross. This is generally denied by theologians, and rightly indeed, if the discourse is about a congruous thought which arises according to the common course of nature, that is, about such a one as is not brought about by a special divine intervention; for if this obtained, a gift supernatural in its mode would be had.

But many congruous thoughts are found in men according to the altogether common course of nature; for there are many honest things which naturally please man so much that he also wishes to do them. Thus it does not seem to be a special and undue benefit if sons recognize that their parents are to be loved, and that this pleases them so much that in fact they also love them. A man would seem to be a monster to whom, according to the common course of nature, no honest good were pleasing; much less can such a thing be affirmed of the whole human race. It belongs to providence naturally due that congruous thoughts come to a man, and not only incongruous ones. Thus, therefore, a congruous thought is something which is perfectly contained within the merely natural order, both as to substance and as to the mode by which it arises. But this congruous thought is due not only to the human race, but also in some way to individual persons.

But from the fact that we can ask God for congruous thoughts and give him thanks for them, it does not follow that they are graces in the proper sense; for not all things which can be asked of God and for which thanks can be given have the character of grace in the proper sense. Thus one can ask for health and other physical goods, which nevertheless are not on that account to be grace.

It is true that all things in the present order of providence are in some way ordered at length to the supernatural end, which holds also of the congruous thought. But just as not all the benefits of God are on that account grace, which is given from the merits of Christ, so neither is the congruous thought.

What has been said holds of the congruous thought in that universal sense in which Vazquez laid down his doctrine; yet by these things it is not affirmed that a congruous thought is never given, or cannot be given, on account of the merits of Christ; this can be conceded, as Suárez says, if that congruous thought in some way conduces to eternal life, whether of itself or by accident, by removing what prevents, for example by impeding sin²⁶.

On the opinion of Father Ripalda²⁷. In his work “De ente supernaturali”²⁸ he lays it down thus: “As often as a man does what has been given him so that he may produce a natural act of virtue, God is already present antecedently by the intrinsically supernatural help of grace, so that he may either produce that act intrinsically natural, extrinsically supernatural and consequently salutary, or, together with the act intrinsically natural, also elicit another act of the same virtue, intrinsically supernatural, about the same formal object, which is common to both the natural and the supernatural act: and thus there is no morally good effort of nature which some supernatural grace does not go before.” “In my opinion it is absolutely true that for any good moral work whatever, or for any act of moral virtue, the theological help of grace is necessary of itself for elevated rational nature, of which the Councils and Fathers of the Church have discoursed against the enemies of grace”²⁹.

Palmieri judges of this opinion: “The opinion of Ripalda, accepted according to its widest universality, cannot persuade us... If however it be restricted to the faithful alone: since no arguments stand in the way, and the reasons of Ripalda are most strong for this hypothesis, we judge it to be true. Nor moreover do we deny that gratuitous natural aids are always at hand for the Gentiles, which are extrinsically supernatural, given from the merit of Christ”³⁰. Pesch³¹ thinks: “This opinion can more easily be admitted if it is restricted to the faithful alone, than if it is extended also to unbelievers; because otherwise it is with difficulty explained why no adult man can be justified without faith properly so called”.

By the sin of Adam the human race lost the gift of integrity; man was changed for the worse in body and in soul. Although nature is not intrinsically corrupted, man is nevertheless wounded in his natural endowments, since that harmony which was possessed by the gift of integrity has been impaired. So weak is man that without grace he certainly comes to mortal sin. It is of this weakness, and of the necessity of grace for healing this weakness, that the present thesis speaks. Grace is necessary in order that man may remain free from mortal sin.

“The adult sinner”: a man truly adult, who has sufficient knowledge of the natural law; who is in the state of sin, and proximately, indeed, original sin is meant; for the discourse concerns that weakness which in the present order comes from original sin. This weakness can be increased by personal sins.

“The whole natural law”: the natural law is that law which is inscribed in the heart of all men, which the adult cannot be ignorant of, which manifests itself in the dictate of conscience. It is usually defined as: the divine will commanding the observance of the natural order and forbidding its disturbance. It is called natural law because it is given with nature, through nature, in nature; and it is so called in distinction from positive law. The thesis treats of the observance of this law as a whole, because for the observance of one or another precept there is not, nor can it be proved, so great a difficulty.

“To observe as to substance”: a law is said to be observed as to substance when it is observed as to what it commands or forbids, but not in such a way, with that perfection, as is required for the work to be salutary; hence to observe as to substance is the same as to observe “merely honestly”, or “not salutarily”.

“For long”: it cannot be determined to a day and an hour, but it signifies a time which is morally reckoned as a longer time, for example several months, or a year.

“Cannot”: the discourse is not about physical impotence; for what the natural law prescribes cannot exceed the physical powers of this nature. It is therefore a question of moral impotence, that is, of a great difficulty in doing what is not physically impossible. This impotence is explained further below.

“Without grace”: without undue divine help. The discourse is not about grace insofar as it gives the physical power of acting¹, but about the help which assists against that moral impotence which arises from the weakness of nature; it is therefore medicinal grace against that weakness, and insofar as it in some way heals the wound, it is called healing grace.

The words of the thesis explained thus far affirm the fact itself, that such an impotence is found in man. Moral impotence, however, presupposes special difficulties which man cannot overcome. The words of the thesis which follow indicate whence these difficulties arise, or in what they consist.

“Temptation” is a solicitation to sin, either by hindering a good act from being done, or by enticing to the commission of a bad act; it arises either from corrupted nature itself (rebellious concupiscence), or from the world, or from the devil². Temptation can be unto mortal sin as well as unto venial sin; in the thesis only temptation unto mortal sin is meant.

“Grave” is that temptation which brings great difficulty. It is not therefore called grave by reason of the object to which it entices, as if the temptation to mortal sin were grave and that to venial sin light; but a temptation to mortal sin can be light, and a temptation to venial sin can be grave. This great difficulty consists for the most part in this, that the temptation strongly entices to sin and at the same time lasts longer; it is therefore great by reason of intensity and duration. “A light temptation, then, is said to be that which either on the part of the intellect has a small or ineffective persuasion, or on the part of the appetite a weak inclination; or that is also light which lasts only for a moment or a very brief time, although otherwise it may seem intense or vehement; but that is called grave which persuades obstinately over a long time, constantly and grievously, and it can be reckoned grave on this title even if at individual moments it is not very vehement, provided that either the persuasion is great in itself, or it is joined with some passion and inclination. But these degrees of temptations cannot be defined by a fixed rule or degree, but must be weighed by prudent judgment, and above all must be considered in comparison with the one who is tempted. For a temptation will be grave for one which would be light for another, on account of their various complexions, temperaments, habits or learning, all of which must be weighed”³.

“Occur”: not always and continually, but it is to be understood in the same way as “for long” above, namely that no one remains free from temptation for long.

“It seems to remain doubtful whether in fact every adult man is sometimes stirred by grave temptations to transgress the divine law in a grave matter. For there seem to be men so placid that they feel no vehement movements of the passions. To this it must be said: If we except those who, either by natural disposition or from illness or old age, are so feeble that nothing greatly matters to them, all men naturally have their own vicious inclinations, by which they are moved when occasion is given, one to avarice, another to anger, another to carnal pleasures, another to sloth in fulfilling the duties of his state, another to injuring charity by word or deed, another to other sins, so that of all it holds: ‘The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh’ (Gal 5, 17; cf. Eph 6, 10 ff.). ‘Labour as a good soldier of Christ... For he also that striveth for the mastery is not crowned, except he strive lawfully’ (2 Tim 2, 3. 5). Wherefore the Council of Trent, sess. 6, c. 13, admonishes all in the words of the apostle: ‘But yet let him that thinketh himself to stand, take heed lest he fall (1 Cor 10, 12), and with fear and trembling work out their salvation (Phil 2, 12)... For they ought to fear, knowing that they are born again into hope of glory and not yet into glory, because of the struggle which remains with the flesh, with the world, with the devil’ (Denz. n. 806). It can indeed happen that someone keeps himself free from grave sin through his whole life; it can also happen that someone, after a struggle long and faithfully overcome, arrives at such quiet that he no longer feels temptations very troublesome. But this very thing is a special gift of God, as St Augustine says: ‘O thou who sayest that thou hast not committed many crimes, why? under whose rule?... This thy God says to thee: I was ruling thee for myself, I was keeping thee for myself’ (Serm. 99, c. 6; M 38,598)”⁴.

“To overcome honestly”: a temptation can be overcome

a) from a bad motive; for example, not to get drunk in order to commit a homicide: he overcomes badly; for this neither is grace required nor is it given;

b) from a motive of supernatural honesty, for example from the love of God: he overcomes salutarily; for this elevating grace is required;

c) from a motive of natural honesty; for example from the natural love of the contrary good: he overcomes honestly; and it is of this that the thesis speaks.

So much for the sense of the thesis; some things still remain to be noted or further explained.

1. It is not asked whether in fact a man is ever found in such a temptation without the help of grace that is necessary; that this does not obtain will be shown in the last part of the treatise, where the distribution of graces is discussed. Hence nothing can be strictly proved either for or against the thesis from experience.

2. A further explanation of the impotence. As has already been said, the impotence is not physical; it could be asserted only by those who would say that human nature has been intrinsically corrupted by original sin. It is therefore moral impotence, a great difficulty in positing the act, which arises from the vehemence of the temptation and its duration. It is easily understood that a man whose knowledge all begins from sense, and which is always bound to matter, knows sensible things much more easily and clearly than spiritual things, and consequently that the will is more inclined and affected by sensible goods than by purely spiritual goods. Hence already of itself the knowledge of a spiritual good and its love is joined with some difficulty, if it is compared with the knowledge and love of sensible things; and thence some struggle between the flesh and the spirit can already begin, if the sensible good is unlawful for man. If then those unlawful sensible things are presented with greater vividness and clarity, a special effort is necessary for man to turn himself away from these things to the consideration of spiritual things, which effort can already be sufficiently difficult. The difficulty grows if there is added a direct solicitation on the part of men, or even on the part of the devil, so that it is morally scarcely possible for man to persevere in the consideration of spiritual goods. Perhaps a strong man can for a short time conquer such an assault, but if the temptation lasts long, rises again and again anew, the man's strength is diminished, the man is worn out, so that at length it is a matter of the greatest difficulty, a moral impotence, to resist longer: the man yields to the temptation.

This is antecedent moral impotence; but as long as the judgment of the man is not truly disturbed or taken away, and the man is not determined to one thing, so long does liberty remain; and as long as this is present, the possibility of the opposite act remains in relation to the particular act, and absolute impotence cannot yet be affirmed.

But man is worn out during that struggle, the intellect is obscured, the will is weakened, and matters come to such a point that man no longer resists with as great a will as he could of himself; the will contrary to the temptation becomes so weak that what in other circumstances would perhaps suffice no longer suffices in so vehement and so long-continued an assault. Thus ultimately the impotence to conquer the temptation arises from this, that the man in fact no longer wills as he can. Consequently, in relation to such a weak will there is absolute impotence. Therefore impotence as absolute is not merely antecedent, but consequent upon this weak free will. So St Augustine: “For the will of the saints is so kindled by the Holy Spirit that they are able because they so will; and they so will because God works that they will. For if in so great an infirmity of this life (in which infirmity, nevertheless, virtue had to be perfected in order to repress pride), their own will were left to them, so that they should remain, if they willed, in the help of God without which they could not persevere, and God did not work in them that they will, amid so many and so great temptations their will itself would succumb through its infirmity, and therefore they could not persevere, because, failing through infirmity, they would not will, or would not so will through the infirmity of the will as to be able. Help has therefore been brought to the infirmity of the human will, that it might be acted upon by divine grace indeflectibly and invincibly; and therefore, although weak, it should not fail, nor be conquered by any adversity”⁵.

From this question — namely, in what the impotence consists and how it is to be explained — there is altogether to be distinguished the other question, whence we know that all men in the present order are so impotent that they would sin without the help of grace. This knowledge we draw from revelation; for God knows what men would do under various conditions. Hence Pesch well says: ⁶ “We indeed do not know the wills of all men so perfectly that we could say a priori that no man wills sufficiently to be able, but this we learn from divine revelation. Nor, however, is it to be said that this absolute impotence is only consequent upon the foresight of God, as Suárez rightly notes (l. 1, c. 24, n. 24 f.), but it is consequent upon the defect of human fortitude or of the love of the honest good, and it is known through the foresight and revelation of God; for the foresight of God does not make the impotence, but manifests it”.

In the explanation given, man's liberty remains. For the impotence, insofar as it is antecedent, is not absolute, and leaves the possibility of the opposite act; but the absolute impotence, by which the opposite act is absolutely excluded, is consequent upon the man's free but weak will; the necessity, therefore, of succumbing to temptation is at no antecedent stage of the use of free will absolute, and so man's liberty is not taken away.

3. What kind of help is required? It follows from the nature of the impotence, which the help must heal. That moral weakness is founded on this, that the intellect knows spiritual things with more difficulty and is more inclined to sensible things; the opposite remedy, therefore, is a more easy and clearer knowledge of the spiritual good and a greater inclination of the will towards it. If a man, wearied in temptation, has already come to the point that he no longer wills as he can, and in such a condition his attention is directed by a special illumination of the intellect to the consideration of spiritual goods, and in the will a greater inclination to such a good arises, then the remedy against that weakness is already had. The help, therefore, is the illumination of the intellect and the inspiration of the will⁷.

4. In what way is this help gratuitous? In this question it is supposed that in fact that help is gratuitous, undue, is truly the grace of Christ, which is positively proved. It is not in itself necessary that that help — the illuminations of the intellect and the inspirations of the will — be entitatively supernatural. For the discourse is not about salutary acts, about a temptation to be overcome salutarily, but merely honestly; and the weakness of man itself can of itself be healed in individual acts by an entitatively natural help; therefore the gratuity of this help cannot of itself be derived from its entitative supernaturality. But an entitatively natural help can be undue according to the manner in which it is conferred: a help supernatural in a certain respect, and hence a true grace. God confers such an illumination of the intellect and such an inspiration of the will as would not be had under the concrete circumstances through the natural course of natural causes; therefore beyond the common and ordinary course of nature he puts into man those thoughts and inclinations of the will; they are therefore supernatural as to manner and so undue. Since whatever has the character of grace in the present order is conferred on account of the merits of Christ, those illuminations of the intellect and inspirations of the will are also truly the grace of Christ the Redeemer.

Suárez: “This motion, then, to speak briefly, is either an illumination of the intellect, by which the object is represented better and more strongly than through the common course of causes it could be, or some motion of the will, by which God makes that resistance sweet, or terrifies from that evil, as Augustine said in homil. 24 and 50. But I have said that the motion must be given in some way supernatural, because for the effect of which we treat it is not always necessary that it be supernatural in its entity, since the effect is not so excellent. It suffices, therefore, that it be conferred in a supernatural manner; and that manner consists in this, that such and so great a consideration or affection, or inordination, in such an occasion and point of time could not come about through the common course of natural causes, nor be procured by the human industry of the one who suffers the temptation. And therefore that motion has the true character of grace, especially if it is given in order to a supernatural end, as it is now given”⁸.

From what has been said — that medicinal help need not be entitatively supernatural — it does not follow that it cannot be, or is not in fact, entitatively supernatural. But if the temptation is conquered by an entitatively supernatural help, the act is not only naturally honest, but salutary. So Billot⁹, who thinks that a grace supernatural only as to manner is not to be admitted, but considers every help of grace to be entitatively supernatural. Ripalda had taught similarly. According to others, however, the grace which is granted to the faithful for overcoming temptation is always entitatively supernatural; but there does not seem to be sufficient reason for denying this simply in regard to those who do not yet believe, but rather it is to be assumed that to them also, at least sometimes, entitatively supernatural graces are granted for overcoming temptations. But if the grace is entitatively supernatural, then it is not only healing but also elevating, and it appears much more clearly to be a gratuitous gift.

Nevertheless, in every supposition that help seems to be in some measure due. For God owes to man those helps without which it is absolutely impossible for man to observe the natural law, to avoid personal mortal sins. For the discourse concerns some impotence which is founded in man's very nature, and which would be, or could be, the same or similar in the state of pure nature, in which without doubt such a help would have been due to nature.

To this some theologians reply that this weakness, although it would have been the same or similar in the order of pure nature, nevertheless in the present order comes from sin, and therefore appeal cannot be made to what would have been in the state of pure nature. For in the present order man has through sin lost every claim to that help which would have been due to him in the state of pure nature.

This reply supposes that man can suffer an essential loss, on account of original sin alone, in those things which nature itself demands, and which thus pertain to nature. But the opposite principle seems truer and is far more commonly used by theologians in the question of the consequences of original sin for the other life¹⁰. Consequently it must be said that even in this life man is not deprived, on account of original sin alone, of those things which nature itself demands of itself, without which it is absolutely impossible to avoid personal mortal sin.

Therefore it must be said: it is due to the man who is in original sin alone, who has not yet committed personal sins, that he not be in that absolute impotence of avoiding mortal sin; he ought to have the possibility of avoiding sin: there is due to him the help by which he can avoid sin. But there is not due to him any help that is supernatural as to manner or even entitatively, such as in the present order is in fact given. This supernatural help, whether as to manner or entitatively, in the present order also supplies what in the order of pure nature a merely natural help would have supplied. And so it remains true that that medicinal help, which in the present order is given on account of the merits of Christ, is truly undue, truly grace. As long as a man is in original sin alone, medicinal help, healing grace, is always at hand for him, and so in fact it is not impossible for such a man to avoid mortal sin. But if a man has committed personal sins, he has through his own fault made himself unworthy of the divine favour; whether, however, and how far God also offers his grace to such a man, must be said in the last part, which is on the distribution of grace¹¹.

Against the thesis are the Pelagians, of whom St Augustine said: “These men are... so great enemies of the grace of God, that they believe that without it man can do all the divine commandments”¹².

The qualification of this thesis. Suárez: “It is usually asked, however, how certain this assertion is. In this all theologians, especially the moderns, teach that it is certain and indubitable, because the contrary comes very close to the error of Pelagius. The difficulty is whether it is simply of faith; for some affirm it on account of the testimonies of Paul and of the councils which we have adduced. So Medina holds, on art. 4 and 8 of St Thomas cited above, whom several moderns imitate. But Soto, at the said chap. 21, does not think that it is of faith, because the testimonies adduced admit some interpretation not altogether improbable, and Torens follows him, book 1 of the Augustinian Confession, chap. 3. Valent. also indicates this, 2nd tome, disput. 8, quaest. 1, punct. 5, § 2, because he delivers it only as a theological opinion. And it also seems to me that it is not simply of faith, because I do not find an express and specific definition of the Church of this dogma under these terms of the proposition, namely concerning the observance of all the precepts of the natural law only as to avoiding the sins contrary to them. But the general definitions adduced above have the evasions also set out above, which, although they are sufficiently refuted, are not so evidently refuted that it is certain of faith that this particular dogma is contained under that general definition. And therefore it is enough to say that this doctrine is a theological conclusion so certain that the contrary is not only now temerarious, but even close to error”¹³. The same can be said today: it is not certainly established by definition; the thesis, abstracting from the further explanation disputed among theologians, is at least to be set down as theologically certain.

THE DOCUMENTS OF THE CHURCH

The Indiculus has already gathered several things pertaining here: “Chap. 3. That no one, even one renewed by the grace of baptism, is fit to overcome the snares of the devil and to conquer the concupiscences of the flesh, unless through the daily help of God he has received perseverance in a good life. This the doctrine of the same bishop (Innocent I) in the same pages¹⁴ confirms, saying: For although he had redeemed man from his past sins, nevertheless, knowing that he could sin again, he kept many things for his reparation, just as he could also correct him after these things, granting him daily remedies; relying and trusting on which, unless we strive, we shall in no way be able to overcome human errors. For it is necessary that, by whose help we conquer, when he does not help again we be conquered”¹⁵.

“Chap. 7. That also which has been established among the decrees of the Council of Carthage¹⁶ we embrace as proper to the Apostolic See, namely what is defined in the third chapter: That whoever says that the grace of God, by which we are justified through Jesus Christ our Lord, avails only for the remission of sins which have already been committed, and not also for help that they not be committed, let him be anathema. And again in the fourth chapter: That whoever says that the grace of God through Jesus Christ helps us not to sin only for this reason, that through it the understanding of the commandments is revealed and opened to us, that we may know what we ought to desire and what to avoid, but that it is not granted to us through it that we love and are able to do what we have known ought to be done, let him be anathema. For since the Apostle says: Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth, it is very impious that we should believe that we have the grace of Christ for that which puffeth up, and have it not for that which edifieth, since both are the gift of God, both to know what we ought to do and to love in order to do it, so that, charity edifying, knowledge may not be able to puff up. But as it is written of God: Who teacheth man knowledge, so it is written also: Charity is of God. Likewise in the fifth chapter: That whoever says that the grace of justification is therefore given to us, that what we are commanded to do by free will we may be able to fulfil more easily through grace, as if, even if grace were not given, we could still, not indeed easily, but nevertheless fulfil the divine commandments without it, let him be anathema. For the Lord was speaking of the fruits of the commandments, where he did not say: Without me you can do it with more difficulty, but said: Without me you can do nothing”¹⁷.

The Council of Orange, can. 10: “The help of God is always to be implored even by those reborn and healed, that they may be able to come to a good end, or to persevere in a good work”¹⁸.

The Council of Trent says of the just themselves: “For they ought to fear, knowing that they are born again into hope of glory and not yet into glory, because of the struggle which remains with the flesh, with the world, with the devil, in which they cannot be conquerors unless with the grace of God they obey the Apostle saying: We are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die. But if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live”¹⁹.

In these texts it is without doubt said that man without the grace of Christ cannot observe the commandments of God, cannot conquer in the struggle. But there is no explicit distinction between observing and conquering salutarily, and merely honestly. Yet it also clearly appears that the sense is that without grace man is conquered in that struggle, that is, that he comes to sin, which was to be established specifically against the Pelagians, who affirmed that man could by his own powers overcome temptation; this is also clearly taught in the Council of Trent. In some places the discourse is directly about those reborn and healed; if therefore they cannot overcome, much more does this hold of those not yet reborn and healed. What kind of grace is necessary is not further determined; several times, however, the discourse is about a remedy, a daily help, which can scarcely be understood otherwise than of actual help.

Thus in these texts is truly contained what the thesis affirms; but from what has been said it is also understood why several theologians hold that it is not certainly established by an explicit definition in relation to the merely honest observance of the commandments and to temptations merely honestly overcome.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

Sacred Scripture clearly teaches that man, even the justified, must undergo a grave and dangerous struggle against the enemies of his salvation, in which he cannot conquer without divine help: by his own natural powers, therefore, he will succumb.

Eph 6, 10 ff.: “For the rest, brethren, be strengthened in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put you on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand (resist) against the wiles (deceitful machinations) of the devil; for our wrestling is not against flesh and blood (against men), but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in high places (in the airy heaven; cf. 2, 2). Therefore take unto you the armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day (difficult, exposed to the snares of the devil), and in all things perfect (to conquer, to overcome all things) to stand (to persist firmly, not to fall). Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in all things taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able (will be able) to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one; and take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, by all prayer and supplication, praying at all times in the spirit; and in the same watching with all instance and supplication for all the saints”.

1 Petr 5, 8 f.: “Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour; whom resist ye, strong in faith”.

The Lord teaches us to pray: “And lead us not into temptation”²⁰, whose meaning Suárez well explains: “I say, therefore, that we ask that we not fall into a harmful temptation; for, as I said, these later petitions are about avoiding evil; and such a temptation is a grave evil; but that which is not harmful has rather the character of a good. But a temptation is called harmful which is going to overcome us; and of such it is true that we ask both that we not be conquered by it and that we not suffer it: yet if one considers it, these two, in respect of the same temptation, come to the same thing; for he who is assaulted by such a temptation is conquered, otherwise it is not harmful; but it was supposed to be going to be harmful in the foreknowledge of God; therefore, because we believe that he knows best which temptation is going to be harmful, we ask that he not lead us into it. And so the propriety of this word is excellently declared; for then what he permits is especially wont to be attributed to God, as if he did it, when from certain foreknowledge, and with the foreseen evil not standing in the way, he permits it”²¹.

Again the Lord admonishes: “Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak”²². To watch, although in this place it is said immediately in the proper sense, namely that the apostles stay awake, that they defend themselves from sleep; “nevertheless, deservedly, from one kind of actions which was necessary to them at that time and which Christ recommended as a care, a general lesson is drawn, proposed to all, that they watch, i.e. that they be cautious and solicitous and circumspect and assiduous in preventing dangers, in removing the incitements of sins: in foreseeing and examining the arts and frauds of those who strive to entice to sin”²³. Besides, the Lord admonishes that prayer must be made, to this end, that they not enter into temptation, which is either: that they not fall into temptation, or: that they not enter into temptation by the assent of the will, i.e. consent to it, succumb in it. Then the Lord adds the reason: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak; therefore even if the spirit is good, nevertheless prayer must be made, because from the side of the weak flesh difficulties will come, to overcome which divine help is necessary. “In order, therefore, that strength be present to overcome this weakness of the flesh, and that by that weakness the spirit itself not be weakened and miserably fall away from its good purpose, prayer is needed, by which those necessary strengths may be obtained from heaven”²⁴.

This struggle which is in man himself between the spirit and the flesh, St Paul describes in Rom 7, and teaches that only by the help of grace does man not succumb in it. Whatever be the explanation of the individual verses and words of this chapter, on which matter there are diverse opinions among Catholic exegetes²⁵, this at least is clear, that the apostle says that in himself, in his members, in his flesh there is a certain law which opposes itself to the law of God. Hence as soon as man has known the law of God, there arises in him a struggle between what he has known ought to be done and what the spirit also wills to do (v. 16, 21, 22), and the law which is in his members (v. 23). This law wills to lead him to sin, and would also lead him there, if he were not freed and helped by the grace of Christ: by this grace alone can he remain free from sin (indirectly, by giving thanks, v. 25; directly 8, 2 ff.).

It is asked who is to be understood by that “I”: a man under the Mosaic law; a justified Christian man (so later St Augustine)²⁶. It seems that it must be said: a man under the Mosaic law. But the Mosaic law is not considered here by the apostle insofar as, besides the things which the natural law prescribes, it also gave ceremonial precepts, but insofar as it says precisely: thou shalt not covet; for by this positive law the Jew also had knowledge of the natural law. Yet what the apostle says of that internal struggle holds not only of the Jews but also of the Gentiles; for they too, according to the apostle's doctrine (c. 2), have knowledge of the natural law, and hence, as regards that struggle, they were not in a better condition than the Jews.

Therefore according to the doctrine of sacred Scripture man on the way of salvation is assaulted by the devil, by the flesh; temptations occur to him which he will not overcome without divine help.

THE FATHERS

ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM: “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able. There are therefore temptations which cannot be borne. And which are they? All of them, so to speak; for the power lies in the help of God, which we draw to ourselves by our will. Wherefore, that you may learn accurately that we cannot easily bear without his help not only those which surpass our power but not even these human ones, he added: But will with the temptation also make issue, that you may be able to bear it”²⁷. — “Do not deprive the paralytic of praise, nor him nor any other man whosoever who is tempted and bears it patiently. For however often we philosophize, however much we be the strongest and most vigorous of all, if the help of God be absent, we shall not be able to resist even a moderate temptation. But why do I speak of us who are vile and abject? Let Paul be someone, or Peter; let it be James or John: deprived of heavenly aid, he is easily conquered and supplanted and falls... Nor is it only in dangers which exceed our powers, but in those also which do not exceed them, that we need heavenly help, that we may resist generously”²⁸.

ST AMBROSE: “If you consider that the just man is scarcely saved, you understand indeed that even his footsteps sometimes totter, and that the author of their decline seems to be God; because he himself also suffers the just to be tempted often, that being instructed by temptations they may be the more proved. But who is so strong as never to be moved in temptation, unless the Lord stand by him as helper”²⁹.

ST JEROME: “The Saviour in his passion is strengthened by an angel, and my Critobulus does not need the help of God, having the power of free will... What, he says, do you sleep? Rise and pray, that you enter not into temptation. He ought, according to you, to have said: What do you sleep? Rise and resist; for you have free will, and once the power has been granted you by the Lord, you need the help of no other. For if you do this, you will not enter into temptation”³⁰.

ST AUGUSTINE: “But they (the Pelagians) seem to themselves to speak acutely, as if any of us were ignorant of this, that if we do not will, we do not sin; nor would God command man what was impossible to the human will. But they do not see that for overcoming some things, either those which are evilly desired or those which are evilly feared, there is sometimes need of great and whole strength of will, which he foresaw that we would not perfectly apply in all things”³¹.

“The Pelagians think they know something great when they say: God would not command what he knew could not be done by man. Who does not know this? But he therefore commands some things which we cannot do, that we may know what we ought to ask of him. For faith itself is that which by praying obtains what the law commands. Finally, he who said: If thou wilt, thou shalt keep the commandments, says somewhat later in the same book of Ecclesiasticus: Who will give a guard to my mouth, and a cunning seal upon my lips, lest I fall by it, and my tongue destroy me?³² He had certainly already received the commandments: Refrain thy tongue from evil, and let thy lips not speak guile³³. Since therefore it is true what he said: If thou wilt, thou shalt keep the commandments, why does he ask that a guard be given to his mouth; like him who says in the Psalm: Set, O Lord, a guard to my mouth?³⁴ Why do not the commandment of God and his own will suffice him; since if he will, he will keep the commandments? How many commandments of God are against pride: he already knows them; if he will, he will keep them. Why then does he say a little later: O Lord, Father and God of my life, give me not the elation of the eyes? The law had already said to him: Thou shalt not covet³⁵: let him therefore will, and do what is commanded; since if he will, he will keep the commandments. Why does he go on and say: Turn away concupiscence from me? Against luxury God has commanded how many things: let him do them, because if he will, he will keep the commandments. What is it that he cries to God: Let not the appetite of the belly and sexual intercourse take hold of me?³⁶ If we said these things to him while present, he would most rightly answer us and say: From this prayer of mine, by which I ask these things of God, understand how I said: If thou wilt, thou shalt keep the commandments. For it is certain that we keep the commandments if we will; but because the will is prepared by the Lord, it must be asked of him that we will as much as suffices for us to do by willing. It is certain that we will when we will; but he makes us will the good, of whom it was said, which I put a little before: The will is prepared by the Lord³⁷; of whom it was said: The steps of man are directed by the Lord, and he will desire his way³⁸; of whom it was said: It is God who worketh in you both to will³⁹. It is certain that we do when we do; but he makes us do, by supplying most efficacious strength to the will, who said: I will make you walk in my justifications, and keep my judgments and do them. When he says: I will make you do, what else does he say but: I will take away from you the heart of stone, whence you did not do; and I will give you a heart of flesh, whence you may do? And what is this but: I will take away the hard heart, whence you did not do, and I will give an obedient heart, whence you may do? He makes us do, to whom man says: Set, O Lord, a guard to my mouth. For this is to say: Make me set a guard to my mouth; which benefit of God he had already obtained who said: I set a guard to my mouth”⁴⁰.

THE THEOLOGIANS

St Thomas: “Before the reason of man, in which mortal sin is, is repaired by justifying grace, it can avoid individual mortal sins, and for some time; for it is not necessary that it sin continually in act; but that it remain long without mortal sin cannot be. Whence also Gregory says on Ezechiel, that sin which is not immediately blotted out by penance draws by its own weight to another. And the reason of this is, that as the lower appetite ought to be subject to reason, so also reason ought to be subject to God, and to establish in him the end of its will; but by the end all human acts must be regulated, as by the judgment of reason the movements of the lower appetite must be regulated. As therefore, when the lower appetite is not totally subject to reason, it cannot be but that inordinate movements occur in the sensitive appetite, so also, when the reason of man is not totally subject to God, it follows that many inordinations occur in the very acts of reason. For when man has not his heart established in God, so as to be willing for no good to be obtained or evil to be avoided to be separated from him, many things occur on account of which, to be obtained or avoided, man withdraws from God, despising his commandments; and so he sins mortally; especially because in sudden matters man acts according to the end preconceived, and according to the pre-existing habit, as the Philosopher says in 3 Ethicorum; although from the premeditation of reason man can do something besides the order of the preconceived end, and besides the inclination of the habit. But because man cannot always be in such premeditation, it cannot happen that he remain long without acting according to the inclination of a will disordered from God, unless he be quickly repaired to the due order by grace”⁴¹.

In those things which the thesis affirms, the theologians agree; but in the further explanation they disagree, as was indicated in expounding the thesis.

If the question about temptations is put thus, whether man can overcome a grave temptation by his own powers, some deny it, at least if it is understood of all grave temptations taken collectively; others think that this must be denied even for individual grave temptations. Yet at once the question arises, how a grave temptation is to be defined; if it is defined as that which man cannot overcome by his own powers, the negative answer for individual temptations is necessary; but such a denial is a tautology. If, however, a grave temptation is conceived as that which brings great difficulty, perhaps it is more difficult to prove strictly an absolute impotence to overcome them individually.

OBJECTIONS

1. Absolute impossibility takes away liberty; but even in the state of fallen nature man is free; therefore absolute impossibility is not had.

I answer: I distinguish the major: an absolute impossibility that is simply antecedent takes away liberty, I let it pass; an absolute impossibility that is not simply antecedent but consequent upon the man's own weak volition, I deny.

2. God does not command impossible things; but he commands the observance of the natural law; therefore this observance is possible.

I answer: I distinguish the major: he does not command impossible things, that is, those which are possible neither with divine help nor without it, I grant; those which are impossible without divine help, I subdistinguish: if he were to deny this help without personal sin on man's part, I let it pass; if he grants this help to man, I deny. In this matter what the Council of Trent says also holds: “For God does not command impossible things, but by commanding he admonishes both to do what you can, and to ask what you cannot, and he helps you that you may be able”⁴². The minor is granted. I distinguish the consequence: the observance of the natural law is possible with divine help, I grant; without it, I deny.

3. But such help is due to man; therefore it is not grace. Proof of the subsumed minor: that is due to man without which he cannot but sin; but such is the help of which the thesis speaks; therefore it is due. The major seems evident; for it is impossible for God, under penalty of eternal damnation, to command man something which is absolutely impossible for all men.

I answer: I deny the subsumed minor; to its proof, I distinguish the major: a merely natural help would be due to man, without which he could not but sin, I grant or let it pass; a supernatural help, I deny. I counter-distinguish the minor: it is a natural help, I deny; it is supernatural, I grant.

But in this reply it is contained that the supernatural help which is in fact granted also supplies those things which in another order a natural help would have supplied; therefore this help can be called due insofar as it precisely takes the place of that merely natural help.

I answer: the whole is granted, according to the doctrine expounded above⁴³; yet it does not follow from this that the supernatural help which is given is due, and is not grace.

Other difficulties are easily solved if it is considered that sufficient help is at hand for all, and therefore that in fact the observance of the natural law is not impossible for man. For many objections see Beraza n. 202 ff., 297 ff.