De gratia Redemptoris

After we have seen what actual grace is, namely supernatural indeliberate and deliberate acts, and how these acts arise in a man who does not have the infused virtues, there remains briefly to be said of actual grace in the just man, or even in the sinner who still has the infused virtue of faith and hope as regards the acts pertaining to these virtues. Since the sources from which we proved that actual graces are those supernatural indeliberate and deliberate acts are altogether universal, it is plain that actual grace, even for a man furnished with supernatural habits, is the same acts. But in these men, in order that such supernatural acts may arise, there is not required the internal elevation described above (through a fluid entity) or the external elevation of the faculty, since through the supernatural habits there is already present the power for entitatively supernatural acts. In them therefore actual grace is not required for that precise reason, that the power for a supernatural act be present.

It is disputed among theologians whether in the just man actual grace, insofar as it is elevating, is altogether necessary. Some¹, Soto, Molina, St Bellarmine, Billot, deny it; others, Perrone, Mazzella, Pesch, Hugon, Beraza, affirm it; to some the affirming opinion seems to be a dogma of faith, to others the more common or the more probable opinion. It may perhaps rightly be asked whether all understand the question in the same sense².

The question therefore is whether God in the just man causes supernatural acts, chiefly indeliberate ones, which are grace, and therefore the principle of salutary acts, and causes them not only by proposing the object (external grace), but by operating intrinsically the act in the vital faculty itself.

And the question thus proposed seems altogether to be affirmed. For very many texts adduced in the thesis (God works in us without us, God illuminates, inspires etc.) are universal and hold not only of unbelievers but also of the just; and in them precisely is found actual grace, the principle of the salutary act. And it would be a sufficiently marvellous thing if a man vitally united with Christ as the branch with the vine were to receive from him only a vital principle and powers for operating, and the vine were not to pour its sap into the branches for bearing fruit. Moreover God dwells in the soul of the just man, and indeed according to the doctrine of the Fathers precisely so as secretly to act in them, that they may fulfil the will of the Father, that they may be more renewed, sanctified and advance.

Another question is whether the supernatural indeliberate acts caused by God in the just are to be called a special gift of God. This operation of God in the soul of the just man certainly corresponds to the supernatural state of the man himself, and to that extent those acts are connatural to this state; yet it does not follow from this that they are something natural. But if someone calls a special gift only that which exceeds the gifts connatural to the state, he must say that such a character of special gift is not found in these acts; but again it does not follow from this that the character of supernatural actual grace is not found in them.

A question could still be raised why the operation of God in causing those indeliberate acts is necessary, whether for exciting the habit or for some other reason. The fact itself does not depend on the solution of this question; it remains even if we cannot indicate the reason why God willed the matter so.