De gratia Redemptoris

I. On sufficient grace

This thesis, as is clear, has two parts: 1) on sufficient grace, 2) on efficacious grace.

“In the state of fallen nature”: therefore even after the sin of Adam, and in consequence of the redemption of Christ; and this must be said especially, since Jansenius explicitly affirms the existence of sufficient grace for the angels and for man before sin.

“Grace”: the gratuitous help which God confers for the performance of salutary acts; actual grace.

“Truly and merely sufficient”: in the sense explained above, therefore the help which confers full power for a salutary act, but which remains without a salutary effect, not because something would be lacking in the grace, but because man does not will to consent to it: if man wills, he can with that help perform a salutary act. It is understood of help remotely or proximately sufficient.

“There is given”: that is, it exists; in other words, not every grace in the present order is efficacious; but the grace which is not efficacious is not for that reason insufficient.

This part is opposed, besides the innovators of the sixteenth century, chiefly by the Jansenists.

This part is defined.

THE DOCUMENTS OF THE CHURCH.

CONC. ARAUSICANUM: “This also we believe according to the Catholic faith, that after the grace received through baptism all the baptized, with Christ helping and cooperating, can and ought, if they will labour faithfully, to fulfil the things that pertain to the salvation of the soul”¹. Therefore the baptized can, if they will; if therefore they do not, it is not from this, that they did not have sufficient help, but because they would not: there is present in them, then, grace truly sufficient, which by their will remains merely sufficient.

CONC. TRIDENTINUM cap. 5: Adults are disposed for justification by freely assenting to grace and cooperating with it, “so that, while God touches the heart of man by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, neither does man himself do nothing at all in receiving that inspiration, since he is able also to reject it, nor yet is he able, without the grace of God, to move himself to justice before him by his own free will”². Therefore without grace man cannot move himself to justice; with grace he can; therefore grace is truly sufficient; if with it he moves himself, the grace is efficacious; yet man can reject it, and so it remains merely sufficient. The same from canon 4³.

Cap. 11: The commandments are not impossible for the justified man to observe, for God helps him that he may be able, and does not desert him by his grace unless he be first deserted⁴. Therefore there is always at hand for them the grace by which they can observe the commandments of God; but they can lose justice by sinning (cap. 15); therefore in such a case the grace was truly and merely sufficient.

INNOCENT XI condemned as heretical the errors of Jansenius⁵: 1) “Some of the commandments of God are impossible to just men who wish and strive to keep them, according to the powers which they presently have: the grace also by which they might become possible is wanting to them”. Therefore according to Jansenius he who sins did not have truly sufficient grace. — 2) “Interior grace in the state of fallen nature is never resisted”. Therefore the grace which is truly sufficient is also efficacious; there is no grace truly and merely sufficient⁶.

ALEXANDER VIII condemned the errors of the Jansenists, among which the sixth: “Sufficient grace is not so much useful to our state as harmful, so that we may therefore rightly pray: From sufficient grace deliver us, O Lord”⁷.

CLEMENT XI condemned the errors of Paschasius Quesnel, among which errors 9-25 contain the doctrine that grace is the operation of the omnipotent God, which nothing can hinder, to which no will can resist. But if grace is absolutely irresistible, it necessarily has its effect: if grace is sufficient, it is also efficacious; merely sufficient grace is not had. — Prop. 10: “Grace is the operation of the hand of the omnipotent God, which nothing can hinder or retard”. — Prop. 13: “When God wills to save a soul and touches it with the interior hand of his grace, no human will resists him”. — Prop. 16: “There are no allurements which do not yield to the allurements of grace; because nothing resists the omnipotent”. — 19: “The grace of God is nothing else than his omnipotent will: this is the idea which God himself hands down to us in all his Scriptures”. — Prop. 21: “The grace of Jesus Christ is a strong, powerful, supreme, invincible grace, inasmuch as it is the operation of the omnipotent will, the sequel and imitation of the operation of God becoming incarnate and raising up his Son”⁸.

Pius VI condemned err. synod. pist. 21: “The proposition which asserts that the light of grace, when it alone is present, effects nothing but that we may know the wretchedness of our state and the gravity of our evil; that grace in such a case produces the same effect which the Law produced: that therefore it is necessary that God create in our heart a holy love, and inspire a holy delight contrary to the love dominant in us; that this holy love, this holy delight, is properly the grace of Jesus Christ, the inspiration of charity, by which, once known, we may act out of holy love; that this is that root from which good works spring; that this is the grace of the New Testament, which frees us from the slavery of sin and makes us sons of God; insofar as it maintains that it alone is properly the grace of Jesus Christ which creates holy love in the heart, and which makes us to act, or also by which man, freed from the slavery of sin, is constituted a son of God; and that that grace is not also properly the grace of Christ by which the heart of man is touched through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, nor is there given a true interior grace of Christ which is resisted: — false, captious, leading into the error condemned as heretical in the second proposition of Jansenius, and renewing it”⁹.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

Is 5, 1 ff.: “I will sing to my beloved a song of my cousin touching his vineyard (a song of my beloved concerning his vineyard). My beloved had a vineyard on the horn of the son of oil (on a fat hill). And he fenced it in, and chose out stones from it (took them away), and planted it with the chosen vine (a select vine), and built a tower in the midst thereof, and set up a winepress in it: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and ye men of Juda, judge between me and my vineyard. What is there that I ought to do more to my vineyard, and have not done to it? was it that (why) I looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes? And now I will show you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be wasted; I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down. And I will make it desolate: it shall not be pruned, and it shall not be digged; and briers and thorns shall come up; and I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel: and the man of Juda his pleasant plant. And I looked that it should do judgment, and behold iniquity; and justice, and behold a cry”.

Without doubt God did all things that are required that they might bear fruit; and to these belongs interior grace. This was truly sufficient, for 1) the Lord says: what is there that I ought to have done more, and have not done? therefore on God's part nothing was lacking; 2) God looked for fruit; but he does not look for things that are impossible; therefore they could bear fruit; 3) because they do not bear fruit, they are punished by God; therefore it is their fault; but fault is not in things which are not even physically possible. It was merely sufficient grace; for the vineyard brought forth not grapes but wild grapes, the house of Israel did not judgment and justice, but iniquity.

Matth 11, 20 ff.: “Then he began to upbraid the cities wherein were done the most of his miracles, for that they had not done penance. Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida: for if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, they had long ago done penance in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you: it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment, than for you”. The text speaks explicitly of the miracles which Christ had wrought there (external grace); but interior grace, without which penance is impossible, is supposed. And this was truly sufficient: for that they did not penance is their fault, for which they will be punished; but it would not have been a fault if they had not had the powers necessary for penance. By their own fault this grace remains merely sufficient.

Matth 23, 37: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldst not? Behold, your house shall be left to you desolate”. He who so speaks gave them also the things necessary for salvation, therefore sufficient grace was present; by their evil will it remains merely sufficient; for that reason they will be punished.

Io 15, 22: they have no excuse; Act 7, 51: they resist the Holy Spirit.

Therefore by the testimony of sacred Scripture there is given in the present order grace truly sufficient, which by the fault of men remains merely sufficient; men are blamed by God because they do not freely use grace.

THE FATHERS

St Irenaeus: “But that which he says: How often would I have gathered together thy children, and thou wouldst not?¹⁰ — he declared the ancient law of man's liberty: because God made him free from the beginning, having his own power, as also his own soul, to use the sentence of God voluntarily, and not compelled by God. For violence is not done by God, but the good sentence is always present to him... And those indeed who do it shall receive glory and honour, because they have wrought good, when they might have not wrought it; but those who do it not shall receive the just judgment of God, because they have not wrought good, when they might have wrought it”¹¹ — “But if thou wilt not believe him, and wilt flee from his hands, the cause of the imperfection shall be in thee, who didst not obey, and not in him who called. For he sent those who should call to the marriage; but they who obeyed him not deprived themselves of the royal supper. The art of God, then, does not fail; for he is able of stones to raise up children to Abraham; but he who does not attain it is himself the cause of his own imperfection”¹².

ARNOBIUS: “But if, you say, Christ came as the preserver of the human race, why does he not altogether free all with equal munificence? Does he not free equally, who calls all equally? Or does he repel or spurn anyone from the principal indulgence, who makes the power of coming to him uniform for the high, the low, servants, women, children? It is clear, then, that the fount of life is open to all, and that no one is forbidden or driven away from the right of drinking. If your disgust is so great that you reject the benefit of the gift offered, nay rather if you prevail so far in wisdom as to call the things which are offered by Christ a game and absurdities, what is expected of him who invites, whose part it is only to set forth the fruit of his goodness at the disposal of your own right?”¹³.

St John Chrysostom: “If he enlightens every man that cometh into this world¹⁴, how do so many men remain unenlightened? For not all acknowledge the worship of Christ. How then does he enlighten every man? As far as lies in him. But if some, of their own accord closing the eyes of their mind, will not receive the rays of this light, it is not from the nature of the light that they remain in darkness, but from the wickedness of those who of their own will deprive themselves of this gift”¹⁵ — “God, being merciful and beneficent, beloved, does and works all things that we may be bright with virtue; and since he wills us to be acceptable and approved, not by force or necessity, but by persuasion and his benefits he allures all who are willing and draws them to himself. Therefore some received him when he came, and others did not. For he wills to have no servant unwilling or compelled by necessity, but all to come willingly and from the purpose of their will, and to have gratitude to him for such service”¹⁶.

St Augustine: Jansenius says that he drew his doctrine from him, and that he hands down nothing other than the genuine doctrine of St Augustine itself; and he insists especially, in our question, on the distinction between the help without which, conferred on Adam, and the help by which, which is conferred on men after the fall. That terminology is indeed found in St Augustine. He had first indicated it in some way in the year 417 in the work De gestis Pelagii cap. 1 n. 3¹⁷; then he proposes it explicitly in the year 427 in the work De correptione et gratia¹⁸: what precisely the doctrine of St Augustine was, and how in particular the help by which and the help without which are to be understood, is controverted even among Catholic authors¹⁹.

Some think that St Augustine changed his view in the course of time, and taught at the end of his life in such a way that the true sufficiency of merely sufficient help came into danger²⁰; others deny any such change in his doctrine. In this question it is altogether free to inquire what was the mind of St Augustine, nor is such an inquiry prevented by the fact that St Augustine is in a special way the doctor of grace; but it is not lawful to embrace as true the doctrine which anyone thinks he has found in St Augustine, if it does not agree with the doctrine of the Church, which is what the Jansenists did. Hence Alexander VIII condemned the proposition: “Where anyone shall have found a doctrine clearly founded in Augustine, he may absolutely hold and teach it, without regard to any Bull of the Pontiff”²¹; and Pius XI warned that “the authority of Augustine when speaking is not to be preferred to the supreme authority of the Church herself teaching”²². The authority of St Augustine himself must yield to the truth and the authority of the Church²³.

In the year 412 St Augustine wrote thus: “By the persuasions of things seen God works that we will and that we believe, whether outwardly through the evangelical exhortations, where also the commandments of the law do something, if he so admonishes a man of his infirmity that he flees by believing to justifying grace; or inwardly, where no one has it in his power what comes into his mind, but to consent or to dissent is of one's own will. In these ways, then, when God works with the rational soul that it may believe — for neither can anyone believe by free will, if there be no persuasion or calling which he may believe — assuredly God also works in man that very will to believe, and in all things his mercy prevents us; but to consent to the calling of God, or to dissent from it, is, as I have said, of one's own will”²⁴. Nor did St Augustine ever retract these things.

Since the Jansenists have denied that merely sufficient grace is a true benefit of God, nay rather have thought it useless and harmful, it must briefly be shown further that it is a true benefit; materially, if the gift is considered in itself, and also formally, insofar as it is conferred by God as a gift. Merely sufficient grace truly gives the power of a salutary act; but to receive this power is without doubt a good and useful thing for man. But that man does not will to use this gift, although he could if he willed, does not change the character of a benefit. And if from the presence of this gift the fault of the resisting man is increased, that does not come from the gift as such, but from the greater malice of man's will. Further, merely sufficient grace is formally a benefit, that is, it is conferred by God as a benefit. For the conferring of this gift proceeds from God's serious salvific will; God wills by this gift to make a salutary act possible for man, he wills that it be a help to man and that man use it. Man indeed does not will to correspond to this divine will, he freely resists grace; but from that nothing is changed in the fact that God gave this gift to man out of good will. God knows that man will not freely use this grace, he leaves man his freedom, he permits the sin; but it does not follow from that that God gave this grace to man in order that he might resist it, but it remains true that God gave it in order that man might use it. God could have given efficacious grace in place of merely sufficient grace, just as he could have willed another order in place of the present order; therefore it is true that he did not will to give a greater benefit than he actually gave; but from the fact that someone does not will to give another a greater benefit it does not follow that what he gave is not a true benefit and given as a benefit. And this would hold even in the case in which God, in view of the great sins which a man has committed, does not will to give him a greater benefit. For always what he gives is in itself a true benefit, and always its conferring proceeds from a serious salvific will; always the help is truly sufficient²⁵.

II. On efficacious grace

We say that efficacious grace is that which in act one has an infallible connexion with the salutary act. It is a question, then, of the efficacy of efficacious grace, which is in fact conjoined with the salutary act. Every truly sufficient grace has the efficacy of power, and confers the power by which a salutary act can be performed; but if the act is in fact performed, the grace has efficacy not only of power, but that which is called the efficacy of operation, because the salutary work is conjoined with this grace. This efficacy merely sufficient grace does not have.

We affirm, then, that there is an efficacious grace which in act one has an infallible connexion with the work. Grace is therefore considered antecedently to the salutary act itself, which will be conjoined with it. That grace is efficacious in act two needs no proof, since it says nothing else than that there are salutary acts in fact; thus considered, the efficacy is called consequent. But what is affirmed in this part of the thesis is the existence of efficacious grace, to which belongs efficacy not only of power but of operation, and that antecedently to the positing of the act, or which in act one is infallibly conjoined with the salutary act. There exists an infallible connexion between this grace and the future salutary act, so that, this grace being given, the salutary act infallibly follows. This infallible connexion is considered under three respects: a) objectively: it is objectively true that this grace will produce this salutary act; b) cognitively: God infallibly knows that this grace will produce this salutary act; c) affectively: God wills to give this grace, which will have this salutary effect.

It is clear that it is a greater benefit if God confers the grace with which he knows that man will cooperate, than if he gives a grace truly sufficient indeed, with which however he knows that man will not cooperate, which therefore is merely sufficient.

It is to be noted that this part of the thesis also speaks of the present order, that is, of the state of fallen nature, therefore after the sin of Adam. St Augustine seems to have taught, and with him certain theologians, that before sin there were no such graces; we do not enter into this question, since our treatise is on the grace of the Redeemer.

The adversaries of this part of the thesis are, besides the Pelagians, chiefly the Semi-Pelagians, who denied the character of a special benefit in the efficacious calling and the gift of perseverance.

This part is laid down as theologically certain.

As regards the argumentation for this part, it is to be noted that the thesis is proved if it is shown that the good act is in a special way a benefit of God, a work of God; for if in the character of a benefit in act one there were no difference between grace truly and merely sufficient and efficacious grace, it would no longer appear why the good salutary act is attributed to God in a special way. But if in the character of a benefit such a difference exists in act one, on account of which the salutary act is to be attributed to God in a special way, it can only be that efficacious grace is infallibly conjoined with the salutary act.

THE DOCUMENTS OF THE CHURCH

INDICULUS cap. 5: “That all the studies and all the works and merits of the Saints are to be referred to the glory and praise of God; because no one pleases him from any other source than from what he himself has given”²⁶. — Cap. 8: The Church prays “that faith be given to unbelievers, that idolaters be freed from the errors of their impiety, that for the Jews, the veil of the heart being taken away, the light of truth appear, that heretics recover their senses by the perception of the Catholic faith, that schismatics receive the spirit of renewed charity, that the remedies of penance be conferred on the lapsed, that finally, when catechumens have been brought to the sacraments of regeneration, the court of heavenly mercy be opened to them. But that these things are asked of the Lord neither perfunctorily nor in vain, the effect of the things themselves shows: since out of every kind of errors God deigns to draw very many, whom, snatched from the power of darkness, he may transfer into the kingdom of his beloved Son²⁷, and make out of vessels of wrath vessels of mercy²⁸. And all this is perceived to be so entirely of the divine work, that this giving of thanks and confession of praise is always referred to God as effecting the illumination or the correction of such men”²⁹. — Cap. 9: “For so great is the goodness of God towards all men, that he wills our merits to be his gifts, and for the things which he has lavished he will give eternal rewards. For he works in us that we may both will and do what he wills, nor does he suffer the things which he has given, to be exercised and not neglected, to be idle in us, that we also may be cooperators of the grace of God”³⁰.

ARAUSICANUM. Can. 3: Grace makes God to be invoked by us; can. 4: By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit it is brought about in us that we will to be purified; can. 6: It is a gift of grace that we be obedient, humble; can. 9: “On the help of God. It is of the divine gift that we both think aright and keep our feet from falsehood and injustice; for as often as we do good, God works in us and with us that we may work”. — Can. 20: “That man can do nothing good without God. God does many good things in man which man does not do; but man does no good things which God does not grant him to do”. — Can. 25: “He (God) gave that he might be loved, he who loved when not loved”³¹.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

1. Phil 2, 13: God is said to work in us both to will and to accomplish, out of good will³². — Phil 1, 6: “Confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus”. — Eph 2, 10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works, which God has prepared that we should walk in them”.

2. Those who are so called to the faith that they follow the calling, those therefore who have received efficacious grace, are called elect. This appellation would not be understood unless there were already a difference in the calling itself. Matth 22, 14; Eph 1, 4; Col 3, 12; 1 Thess 1, 4; 2 Tim 2, 10; Tit 1, 1; 1 Petr 1, 1; 2, 9; Rom 9.

3. Ps 36, 23: “By the Lord the steps of a man are directed: and he will his way (he orders his way as it pleases him)”. — Ps 118, 33 ff.: “Set before me, O Lord, the way of thy justifications: and I will seek it always. Give me understanding, and I will search thy law: and I will keep it with my whole heart. Lead me into the path of thy commandments: because I have willed it. Incline my heart into thy testimonies: and not into covetousness”. — 3 Reg 8, 57 f.: “The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers, not leaving us nor casting us off. But may he incline our hearts to himself, that we may walk in all his ways, and keep his commandments and his ceremonies, and all the judgments which he commanded our fathers”. — Bar 2, 31 ff.: “And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, and I will give them a heart, and they shall understand: ears, and they shall hear. And they shall praise me in the land of their captivity, and shall remember my name. And they shall turn away from their stiff neck, and from their wickedness: because they shall remember the way of their fathers who sinned against me”. Ezech 11, 19 f.: “And I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit in their bowels: and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh: that they may walk in my commandments, and keep my judgments, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God”. By all these it is manifested that not only can good works be from God, but that the good actions themselves are to be attributed to him and can be asked of God.

THE FATHERS

TERTULLIAN: “This will be the power of divine grace, more powerful certainly than nature, having in us the free power of the will subject to itself, which is called αὐτεξούσιον”³³.

St CYPRIAN: “We add also and say: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven³⁴, not that God may do what he wills, but that we may be able to do what God wills; for who resists God, that he should not do what he wills? But because we are resisted by the devil, that our mind and act may not in all things obey God, we pray and beseech that the will of God be done in us; and that it be done in us, the will of God is needed, that is, his help and protection, because no one is strong by his own powers, but is safe by the indulgence and mercy of God”³⁵.

St AUGUSTINE: “But that is manifest, that we will in vain unless God have mercy; but that, I know not how, is said, that God has mercy in vain unless we will. For if God has mercy, we also will; for it belongs to the same mercy that we will; for God it is who works in us both to will and to work for good will. For if we ask whether the good will is a gift of God, it would be strange if anyone dared to deny it”³⁶.

“No man can come to me, except the Father who sent me draw him³⁷. For he does not say: lead him, that we may understand that in that word the will in some way goes before. Who is drawn, if he already willed? And yet no one comes unless he will. He is drawn therefore in wondrous ways that he may will, by him who knows how to work within in the very hearts of men, not that men, which cannot be, should believe unwilling, but that from unwilling they should be made willing”³⁸.

“If faith is of free will only, and is not given by God, why do we pray for those who will not believe, that they may believe? Which we should do altogether in vain, unless we most rightly believed that the omnipotent God can convert even perverse wills and wills contrary to the faith to believing”³⁹.

“And therefore God willed that his saints should glory, not even in the good of perseverance itself, in their own powers, but in himself: who gives them not only such help as he gave to the first man, without which they cannot persevere if they will; but also works in them to will: so that, since they will not persevere unless they both can and will, both the ability and the will to persevere be given them by the largess of divine grace. For their will is so kindled by the Holy Spirit that they can for this reason, because they so will; and they so will for this reason, because God works that they will. For if in so great infirmity of this life (in which infirmity nevertheless it behoved that virtue be perfected for the repressing of pride) their own will were left to them, so that in the help without which they cannot persevere they should remain if they willed, and God should not work in them that they will, amid so many and so great temptations their will itself would succumb by its infirmity, and therefore they could not persevere, because failing by infirmity they would not will, or would not so will by the infirmity of the will that they could. There is given, then, succour to the infirmity of the human will, that by divine grace it might be moved indeclinably and insuperably⁴⁰; and therefore, although weak, it should not fail, nor be conquered by any adversity. Thus it came about that the will of man, invalid and weak, persevered in a good still small through the power of God”⁴¹.

THE THEOLOGIANS

There seems no need to bring forward more texts of the theologians in a matter in which they agree⁴²; but since they seem indeed to have been unaware that this is the doctrine of Molina, let his words be brought forward:

“In another way God is said to will something, dependently indeed on the created will, as it is free, and so under the condition, if the created will also wills it; but in that respect absolutely, because since he foresees that it will freely come to be through the will itself, on the hypothesis that he wills to create that order of things which he has in fact determined to create, it pleases him, and by his will now absolute he wills that there be what will freely be, and can also not be. In this way God, best and greatest, wills all the good things which will come to be through our will, not only by a conditional will, if we also will them, but also by an absolute will, insofar as they please him who foresees them as future, and his divine and singular goodness intends and wills them through our will. But that this absolute will of God is also always fulfilled is manifest from this, that it rests upon the certainty of the divine foreknowledge, that the thing will so come to be through our will, and the same foreknowledge follows in God: wherefore, since neither change nor shadow of vicissitude can fall upon God, as certain as it is that God through that foreknowledge cannot be deceived, so certain is it that an absolute will of God of this kind is always fulfilled”⁴³.