De gratia Redemptoris

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.

It is not asked whether the natural love of God and the supernatural love are to be distinguished, which has been proved in the treatise on charity¹; the opposite has been condemned against Baius, prop. 34: “That distinction of the twofold love, namely natural, by which God is loved as the author of nature, and gratuitous, by which God is loved as beatifier, is vain and fictitious, and devised to mock the sacred Scriptures and the many testimonies of the ancients”². But it is asked whether the act of natural love, by which God is loved above all things, is possible for fallen man. That such a love is possible for innocent man in the merely natural order is easily conceded. Love above all things is understood not intensively but appreciatively, that is, the love by which God is preferred to every created being. A love of this kind necessarily includes the will not to sin, to fulfil the things which God wills. The discourse is not about love above all things effectively, that is, such that man in fact even in his works prefer God to all creatures; that this love is naturally impossible has been proved in the preceding thesis. But the discourse is about love above all things affectively, that is, whether such an affection can be elicited by man with his natural powers. And indeed only its possibility is asked, not whether such an act is in fact found. Nor is physical power meant, which is again conceded, but moral power, namely whether perhaps in such an act so great a difficulty is found that it is absolutely impossible for fallen man. The matter cannot be decided from the positive sources; because when in them the discourse is about the necessity of grace for loving God, salutary love is meant; and the opinions of theologians on this question are divided. But reason seems to be in favour of affirming that power.

For man by the natural light of reason can know that God is his last end, that he is infinitely good and most amiable; nor does there appear a reason why the affection of love towards God cannot follow such knowledge; for in this act as such there does not seem to be extraordinary difficulty, so that it should be called morally impossible. Nor does it seem impossible by reason of the purpose of not sinning, which, as has been said, is included in that act of love. Although it is true that man cannot by his natural powers carry out that purpose, it does not follow from this that he can never have an act of such a purpose, not even for a short time. For it is one thing to carry out a purpose in deed, and another to have the act of the purpose. It is not necessary that the man who elicits that act of love and thus has that purpose should at the same time always think of all the difficulties which stand in the way of carrying out the purpose; besides, it does not seem to have been proved that man cannot have a serious purpose concerning something which he cannot accomplish by his own powers.

Hence the opinion seems to be preferred which says that the act of the love of God above all things is, in the moral order, not absolutely impossible for fallen man. But since the act is merely natural, it is clear that it is not salutary, and therefore does not positively dispose for grace, much less is it immediately justifying³.