De gratia Redemptoris

On the causes of justification

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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