De gratia Redemptoris

There has often been question already of the division into elevating and healing grace; now, however, we treat of the division which is connected with those things that have been said in this part about the nature of actual grace.

Exciting (calling) and helping grace: God works in the human intellect a supernatural knowledge and in the will a supernatural inclination toward some good: the indeliberate acts are actual grace¹. Thus a man is stirred and called by God to the placing of a salutary act. Let us suppose that a man thus stirred in fact proceeds to a salutary act. The created principle of this act is the faculty elevated by actual grace², which operates, as is clear, with God concurring according to the nature of the agent principle³. Thus actual grace first stirred the man to the good work, and further was in fact the principle of the salutary act; hence it is rightly said that it helped the man in placing the salutary act⁴. Inasmuch as it stirs, actual grace precedes the salutary act and does not include it; indeed it can be without it. But inasmuch as the salutary act in fact proceeds from it, it precedes that salutary act as its principle, yet connotes its placing. Exciting grace can be without the consent of the will; helping grace includes it.

This division of grace is used in the Council of Trent, chap. 5: “The beginning of justification must be taken from the calling of God... that... through his exciting and helping grace... they may be disposed”⁵. Likewise chap. 6: “But they are disposed to that justice itself when, stirred by divine grace and helped...”⁶. The Vatican Council, sess. 3 chap. 3: “The most benign Lord both stirs the erring by his grace and helps them”⁷. St Augustine: “But that we turn to God, we cannot unless he stirs and helps”⁸. St Bernard: the strivings of our free will toward good “are both vain, if they are not helped by grace, and of no account, if they are not stirred”⁹. The same is indicated in Sacred Scripture: Apoc 3, 20; cf. Eph 5, 14; Rom 8, 26.

Operating and cooperating grace. This division can easily be understood, and is understood by many to be really identical with the preceding one: operating grace, which works in us without us, which precedes free consent, which stirs a man to the good work; cooperating grace, which cooperates in producing the salutary act, and which therefore is helping grace.

ST AUGUSTINE: “The apostle Peter did not yet have that charity itself, when out of fear he denied the Lord three times. For fear is not in charity, as John the evangelist says in his Epistle; but perfect charity casts out fear¹⁰. And yet, though small and imperfect, it was not wanting when he said to the Lord: I will lay down my life for you¹¹: for he thought he could do what he felt he willed. And who had begun to give him this charity, even small as it was, but he who prepares the will, and by cooperating perfects what he begins by operating? For he himself, when he begins, works that we may will, who cooperates with those who will, perfecting. Wherefore the Apostle says: I am certain that he who works a good work in you will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus¹². To will, therefore, he works without us; but when we will, and so will as to do, he cooperates with us: yet without him either working that we will, or cooperating when we will, we can do nothing for the good works of piety. Of him working that we will, it is said: For it is God who works in you, both to will. But of him cooperating when we already will and by willing do: We know, he says, that to those who love God all things work together unto good”¹³. St Augustine therefore seems to understand operating grace as that which precedes our will, and cooperating grace as that which cooperates with our will; and which moreover helps so that the work willed may also be given over to execution.

ST THOMAS applies this division both to actual and to habitual grace: “Grace can be understood in two ways: in one way, the divine help which moves us to will and to act well; in another way, the habitual gift divinely bestowed on us. And in either way grace, thus named, is fittingly divided into operating and cooperating.

For the operation of any effect is not attributed to the thing moved but to the mover; in that effect, therefore, in which our mind is moved and does not move, while God alone moves, the operation is attributed to God; and according to this it is called operating grace. In that effect, however, in which our mind both moves and is moved, the operation is attributed not only to God but also to the soul; and according to this it is called cooperating grace.

But there is in us a twofold act: the first indeed is the interior act of the will, and as regards this act the will is as moved, while God is as moving, especially when the will begins to will good, which before it willed evil; and therefore, inasmuch as God moves the human mind to this act, it is called operating grace. The other act, however, is exterior, and since it is commanded by the will, as has been said above, it follows that as regards this act the operation is attributed to the will; and because God also helps us to this act, both inwardly by confirming the will, that it may arrive at the act, and outwardly by supplying the faculty of acting, as regards this kind of act it is called cooperating grace; whence, after the words already quoted, Augustine adds: That we will, he works; but when we will, that we may accomplish, he cooperates with us. So then, if grace be taken for the gratuitous motion of God, by which he moves us to a meritorious good, grace is fittingly divided into operating and cooperating.

But if grace be taken for the habitual gift, then there is a twofold effect of grace, as of any other form whatever, of which the first is being, the second is operation; as the operation of heat is to make hot, and the outward heating. Thus habitual grace, inasmuch as it heals the soul, or justifies it, or makes it pleasing to God, is called operating grace; but inasmuch as it is the principle of a meritorious work, which proceeds from free will, it is called cooperating”¹⁴.

ST BELLARMINE: “It must therefore be said that operating grace is that which effects in a man the first act of the deliberate will, such as is conversion, whether from unbelief to faith, or from the other sins to penance; but cooperating grace is that which effects the consequent acts of the will, such as to will to pray, to will to seek a priest, to will to do good works, and others like them. These are immediately followed by external acts, so that operating grace is nothing else than the special efficacious help in respect of the first act of the will, while cooperating grace is the special help in respect of the following acts”¹⁵.

Others again have other explanations, so that in each author one must attend carefully to how he understands this division.

Prevenient and subsequent grace. The Council of Trent declares “that the beginning of justification itself in adults must be taken from the prevenient grace of God through Christ Jesus, that is, from his calling”¹⁶, where prevenient grace appears to be the same as calling grace.

According to the different term before which grace is called prevenient, this division can be understood in different ways.

ST AUGUSTINE: “We too work, but we cooperate with him working, because his mercy has gone before us¹⁷. He goes before us that we may be healed, because he will also follow after, that being now healed we may be strengthened; he goes before us that we may be called, he will follow after that we may be glorified; he goes before us that we may live piously, he will follow after that we may live with him for ever, because without him we can do nothing”¹⁸. “If no Christian will dare to say: It is not of God who shows mercy, but of man who wills, lest he contradict the apostle most openly, it remains that it be understood as rightly said for this reason: It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy¹⁹, that the whole be given to God, who both prepares the good will of man that it may be helped, and helps it when prepared. For the good will of man goes before many gifts of God, but not all; and those which it does not itself go before, among them is it also itself. For both are read in the holy utterances: both His mercy will go before me²⁰ and His mercy will follow me²¹. He goes before the one who wills not, that he may will; he follows the one who wills, lest he will in vain”²².

ST THOMAS: “As grace is divided into operating and cooperating according to different effects, so also into prevenient and subsequent, however grace be taken. Now there are five effects of grace in us: of which the first is that the soul be healed; the second, that it will good; the third, that it efficaciously work the good it wills; the fourth, that it persevere in good; the fifth, that it attain to glory. And therefore grace, according as it causes in us the first effect, is called prevenient in respect of the second effect; and as it causes the second in us, it is called subsequent in respect of the first effect. And as one effect is posterior to one effect and prior to another, so grace can be called prevenient and subsequent according to the same effect in respect of different things. And this is what Augustine says in the book De natura et gratia: He goes before, that we may be healed; he follows after, that being healed we may be strengthened; he goes before, that we may be called; he follows after, that we may be glorified”²³.

All three divisions can easily and aptly be reduced to the first, so that exciting (calling), operating and prevenient grace are understood as one and the same on one side, and helping, cooperating and subsequent grace on the other.

It is disputed among theologians whether exciting grace is really distinct from helping grace. The answer depends in great part on the opinion which one defends about the nature of actual grace. Those who hold it to be a created flowing being, whether with or without indeliberate acts, for the most part affirm a real distinction, inasmuch as they require a new created flowing being for the placing of a deliberate act²⁴. Those who with Molina defend an external elevation and at the same time hold that the indeliberate act is the physical principle of the deliberate act deny that they are really distinct graces. Those who with Suárez defend an external elevation but deny that the indeliberate act is the physical principle of the deliberate act require, for the placing of the deliberate act, another external elevation of the faculty, and hence can say that helping grace adds something to exciting grace.

The real distinction has no foundation in the sources; rather it could be said that the sources favour identity²⁵.