De gratia Redemptoris

Calvin taught that only the predestined have true justifying faith, that they alone have the spirit of adoption, and that they never lose justice; whereas the reprobate were never justified in their whole life and never had true faith. According to him, therefore, justice is unlosable¹.

Jovinian had already taught the unlosability of justice before this, of whom St Jerome says: “His second proposition (of Jovinian) is that those who have been baptized cannot be tempted by the devil. And lest he should seem to have said this foolishly, he adds: But whoever have been tempted, are shown to have been baptized with water only and not with the spirit, which we read of in Simon Magus. Whence John also says: Everyone who is born of God does not commit sin: for his seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. And in this the sons of God and the sons of the devil are made manifest². And at the end of the Epistle: Everyone who is born of God does not sin; but the generation of God preserves him, and the evil one does not touch him”³.

Luther, according to his doctrine of fiducial faith, taught that justice, as it is apprehended by faith, is so retained by that same fiducial faith; and as soon as a man abandons this faith, he falls away from justice. And indeed in this way alone is justice lost. The just man sins in every work, and those sins are in themselves mortal; but they are not imputed to the just by God, and so they are venial for them. By them justice is not lost.

Against both errors the thesis is laid down.

“The just man… loses”: justice that has been received is losable. Therefore it is possible for a justified man to become again an enemy of God, a sinner, and, if he dies in such a state, to be damned; therefore a reprobate can for some time be in the state of grace and a son of God. This is against Calvin.

“By every mortal sin”: therefore not by unbelief alone, but by other sins as well, can the soul be deprived of the supernatural life — sins which are for that very reason called mortal⁴. This is against Luther.

“Alone”: there are certain lesser sins which can be found in the just man without his ceasing to be just; they are precisely those which are called venial.

“Justice”: it is understood proximately of that gift by which a man is formally constituted just, namely of sanctifying grace, with the Holy Spirit indwelling⁵. As regards the infused virtues, it has been proved in the treatise on the infused virtues⁶ that the virtue of charity is lost together with sanctifying grace, and therefore by every and only mortal sin; the virtue of hope, by the sin directly opposed to it, and the virtue of faith by the sin directly opposed to faith. This loss of grace is not so to be understood as if a man by sin physically destroyed grace; but just as supernatural habits are infused by God, so also they are physically destroyed by God, if a man places an obstacle against that habit.

The thesis is defined in the Council of Trent.

There are three parts of the thesis: 1) justice can be lost; 2) by every mortal sin; 3) by mortal sin alone.

I. Justice can be lost.

THE DOCUMENTS OF THE CHURCH

CONC. TRIDENTINUM, cap. 12: “No one also, as long as this mortal life is lived, ought to presume so far concerning the hidden mystery of divine predestination as to settle certainly that he is altogether in the number of the predestined, as though it were true that the justified man can either sin no more, or, if he has sinned, ought to promise himself a certain repentance. For, unless by special revelation, it cannot be known whom God has chosen for himself”⁷. Cap. 13: “Similarly concerning the gift of perseverance… let no one promise himself anything certain with absolute certainty… they are born again into the hope of glory and not yet into glory…”⁸. — Cap. 14: “But those who have fallen away from the grace of justification received through sin can be justified again, when, with God exciting them, through the sacrament of penance they have taken care to recover by the merit of Christ the grace they had lost…”⁹. — Can. 23: “If anyone shall say that a man once justified can sin no more, nor lose grace, and that therefore he who falls and sins was never truly justified… A. S.”¹⁰.

CLEMENT XI condemned the error of Paschasius Quesnel 43: “The first effect of baptismal grace is to make us die to sin, so that the spirit, the heart and the senses have no more life for sin than a dead man has for the things of the world”¹¹.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

Rom 11, 20 ss.: “But thou standest by faith: Be not high-minded, but fear. For if God hath not spared the natural branches: fear lest perhaps he also spare not thee. See then the goodness and the severity of God: towards them indeed that are fallen, severity: but towards thee, the goodness of God, if thou abide in goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off”. — 1 Cor 9, 27: “I chastise my body and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway”. — 1 Cor 10, 12: “He that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall”. — Apoc 3, 11: “Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown”.

See the Fathers in the following part.

II. By every mortal sin.

The documents of the Church

CONC. TRID. cap. 15: “Against also the crafty wits of certain men, who by sweet speeches and blessings seduce the hearts of the innocent¹², it must be asserted that not only by unbelief, by which even faith itself is lost, but also by any other mortal sin whatever, although faith is not lost, the grace of justification that has been received is lost: defending the doctrine of the divine law, which excludes from the kingdom of God not only unbelievers, but the faithful too who are fornicators, adulterers, the effeminate, those who lie with mankind, thieves, the covetous, drunkards, railers, extortioners¹³, and all others who commit deadly sins, from which with the help of divine grace they can abstain, and for which they are separated from the grace of Christ”¹⁴. — Can. 27: “If anyone shall say that there is no mortal sin except that of unbelief, or that no other sin, however grave and enormous, besides unbelief can make a man lose the grace once received: A. S.”¹⁵.

Sess. 7, De Baptismo, can. 6: “If anyone shall say that a baptized person cannot, even if he wishes, lose grace, however much he sins, unless he is unwilling to believe: A. S.”¹⁶.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

St Paul enumerates several sins which exclude from the kingdom of God: 1 Cor 6, 9 (cited in the Council of Trent); Gal 5, 19-21; Eph 5, 5; similarly Apoc 21, 8 (“their part shall be in the pool burning with fire and brimstone: which is the second death”).

Iac 1, 15: “But sin, when it is completed (perfected, perfectly committed), begets death”.

THE FATHERS

St ATHANASIUS: “Wherefore when anyone has fallen away from the Spirit by some fault, that grace indeed remains irrevocably with those who have willed it, provided only that they repent after they have fallen; yet he who has fallen is no longer in God, because the holy and paraclete Spirit, who is in God, has withdrawn from him”¹⁷.

St JEROME, explaining the words of John which Jovinian had objected: “For this cause, he says, I write to you, my little children: Everyone who is born of God does not sin, that you may not sin, and that you may know that you remain in the generation of the Lord as long as you have not sinned. Nay, those who persevere in the generation of the Lord cannot sin. For what fellowship is there of light and darkness? of Christ and Belial?¹⁸ As day and night cannot be mingled, so neither can justice and iniquity, sin and good works, Christ and Antichrist. If we have received Christ into the lodging of our breast, we put the devil to flight at once. If we have sinned, and the devil has entered through the door of sin, Christ straightway withdraws”¹⁹.

St AUGUSTINE: “But if one already regenerated and justified falls back by his own will into a wicked life, certainly he cannot say: I have not received it, because he has lost, by his own free will turned to evil, the grace of God that he had received”²⁰.

III. By mortal sin alone.

The documents of the Church

CONC. TRID. cap. 11: “For although in this mortal life the saints and just, however holy, sometimes fall into light and daily sins, which are also called venial, they do not therefore cease to be just. For that voice of the just is both humble and true: ‘Forgive us our debts’”²¹. — Sess. 14, cap. 5, De confessione: “For venial sins, by which we are not excluded from the grace of God and into which we fall more frequently…”²².

SACRED SCRIPTURE

Iac 3, 2: “For in many things we all offend”. Certainly he does not mean to say that all are spiritually dead and separated from Christ. — All must pray: “Forgive us our debts”, Matth 6, 12.

For more on this part see thesis 15, where it is shown that it is a singular privilege to be able to avoid venial sins throughout one’s whole life; but it is not a singular privilege to remain in the justice received; for every just man can do that (cf. thes. 12 part. 3).