De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

Indeed, for those who undertake a disputation concerning nature and grace, it is first worth the effort to explain the matter of these names. For by the word nature we here designate the natural faculty of free will for acting well, and by the name grace the help and gifts divinely supplied to us for those offices which nature is not sufficient to undertake and accomplish. Here it must be noted that the influx¹ and general concurrence of God, although it is spontaneous and voluntary to the divine majesty, belonging to universal providence, nevertheless, because in the very first establishment of things it so agreed to concur with the nature of things that it allowed things (as Augustine says, 3 On the Trinity)² to act by their own natural motions, is numbered among natural causes: as if it were due to nature. For as it was of God's mercy to create the natures of things out of nothing, yet to each individually its powers and qualities are due: to the heavens, namely, light; to man, reason and sense; and to others other things. And by almost the same reasoning, that general concurrence is due to the universe as long as it has endured. Wherefore when both philosophers and theologians say that the sun illuminates by nature, the heavens are carried around naturally, fire burns by its own nature, and the like, they comprehend under the name of nature the general efficiency of God: who surely not only gives to each thing the form of being and the power of acting, but sustains all things so that they may be, and moves them so that they may act. But those things which man, helped in that way, cannot do, either are repugnant to his nature, or he obtains them by supernatural help. And this is called the help of grace: as if not due to nature, but conferred freely. This is surely the phrase the Apostle uses,³ where he says: To him who works, the reward is not imputed according to grace, but according to debt. As if works which are so placed in our free will that they can be accomplished by the sole general influx of God are our own, for which accordingly a reward is due to us as for our own merits. Therefore, if you consider the mercy of God, both fashioning this machine of things out of nothing and continually sustaining it, you will recognize that all natural things are works of grace. But indeed everywhere in sacred page, especially in Paul, we read grace, and under that name a gift comes, over and above its own debt to nature, bestowed from heaven for doing a supernatural work. For natural gifts, although they are not due to the person as though he himself merited them, are nevertheless in a certain way due to nature; but supernatural gifts are due neither to the person nor to nature: and therefore it is said simply of grace. Finally, take an indication of this distinction. The natural and the miraculous are opposed over against each other; but when God withdraws that universal influence from natural causes (as he once did both when he made the sun stand still and when the Babylonian fire did no harm to the boys)⁴ it is reckoned a miracle: therefore that influence is a natural cause. But concerning special help we speak otherwise. For that God has mercy on some and hardens others, we do not regard as a miracle, but as his incomprehensible judgment. Augustine⁵ recognized this very thing, as almost all the things which can be devised for the argument of this work. Hence it is no wonder if we repeatedly have recourse to him as almost the sole leader, before the other Fathers. Just as also among the scholastics we shall more frequently consult St. Thomas, who discusses these matters more copiously than the rest, even to the letter. He, on Psalm 144, says: There is a certain grace of God by which God made or created us. Another by which he remade or redeemed us. And a little after: Pelagius attributed to God indeed that which is: and in this he thinks rightly: but to himself that which is just: and in this his opinion deceives him. Thus Augustine. For Pelagius confessed, in a pre-eminent sense, that we are justified by the grace of God, because he said that natural powers were freely implanted in us: not however that beyond them we need a new help of grace. This the same Augustine⁶ more sharply censures in the letter of the five bishops to Innocent, which is the 95th, in these words. Although by a certain reasoning not to be disapproved, that is called the grace of God by which we were created, so that we should not be nothing, nor be something in such a way as a corpse which does not live, or a tree which does not feel, or a beast which does not understand, but men who both are, and live, and feel, and understand: and for this so great benefit we ought to give thanks to our Creator: whence deservedly even this can be called grace, because it was given not by the merits of any preceding works, but by the free goodness of God. There is nevertheless another grace by which the predestined are called, justified, glorified. And concerning this, he says, the question was with Pelagius, when he was compelled not to say that grace is given according to our works and merits. And in the second letter to Sixtus, which is the 105th in order,⁷ he says: When it is asked of these (namely the Pelagians)⁸ what grace Pelagius had in mind when he anathematized those who say that the grace of God is given according to our merits: they answer that he had in mind human nature itself, in which we were created. For before we existed, we could merit nothing so as to exist. But let that fallacy (he says) be cast away from the hearts of Christians: for the Apostle by no means commends that grace by which we were created to be men, but that by which we were justified to be just men. For this is the grace through JESUS CHRIST our Lord. For CHRIST died not for those who were nothing, that men might be created, but for the ungodly, that they might be justified. Thus far Augustine. Let us conclude therefore that although natural benefits also have the name of grace, yet wherever there is speech simply about grace (unless the context more particularly diverts it to something else), the benefit of JESUS CHRIST our Saviour, bestowed on us for our salvation, is understood.⁹ Concerning which Paul says: By grace you are saved through faith, and this not from yourselves: for it is the gift of God. Whence although some grace specifically receives its name from its effect, so as to be called grace making pleasing, or gratifying, yet every grace receives such a name from the privation of a preceding cause: namely, because it is given not from debt, but freely. To which Paul also alludes, when he set in opposition: It is not imputed according to grace, but according to debt. And again: If by grace, not of works: otherwise grace is now not grace. And such is the opposition of nature and grace, concerning which we begin this treatise. But what grace is, we have more conveniently examined in book 2, chapter 3.

The theme of the work.— But that we may insert ourselves into the dispute which the Lutherans intend against us, there have always existed two opposing dangers to the Church of God concerning our justification. One, indeed, has come from those who, injurious to the grace of God and the divine honour,¹⁰¹¹ conceded too much to free will and to our works. Whom the Apostle Paul often and more often convicts of a shameful error, and as men who are impudently contumelious against God, so he pronounces concerning them everywhere. This error, after four hundred years, that famous Pelagius¹² revived. But the other danger was brought upon the Church by those who deferred to the grace of God to such an extent that they took away almost free will: saying that God works justice in us without us. And therefore that we need only faith, by which we may lay hold of the mercy of God. But that other works are by no means necessary: since Paul says, We reckon that a man is justified by faith, and not by works, and very many of this kind. Against whom (as Augustine says in On Faith and Works)¹³ Peter and the rest of the apostles wrote, and therefore Peter calls them corrupters of Paul's letter, as we shall explain more fully in book 2, final chapter.¹⁴ But amid these rocks, our holy mother the Church, breathing the breeze of the Holy Spirit, so establishes free will that she nevertheless judges the grace of God necessary for it, lowly and needy as it is. But conversely she so extols grace that she does not wish free will to be taken away, but wills that our cooperation is needed in justification, and then in our works, by which, being just, we are still justified. Therefore Martin Luther, among the other errors¹⁵ which he disseminated of many kinds, not only inclined to this second part, different from Pelagius, but made a very great addition. For he wills our nature to have been so far profaned and exhausted of powers by the sin of our first parent that no liberty for good remained in us from that source. Whence he fabricates innumerable monstrosities concerning original sin, free will, justification, and our works. But that these things may be clearly weighed from their causes, we have determined to treat all the matters concerning nature and grace: so that wherever anyone encounters a place against the Lutherans, we may discuss it there more lucidly. But since by the knowledge of extremes the middle becomes very well known, both the supernatural and most happy state of grace and the most wretched condition of sin are best discerned from our natural condition, and therefore I thought I had found no other suitable beginning of speaking from that point than if I first set before the eyes of all four men, differing in states and qualities,¹⁶ whom I mentioned a little before. In which I shall have made clear throughout the whole work how far our nature by its own powers advances in the cultivation of morals, and where, unless supported more particularly by the help of grace, it fails. But the aim and theme of the work, at least of the two books, will be the elucidation of this word, which is the symbol and badge of a Christian: FAITH, WHICH WORKS THROUGH CHARITY. For although concerning this word we and our adversaries agree, namely that justification is made by faith which works through charity, nevertheless the reality differs very much.

A distinction must be made between the things that belong to faith and the things that belong to opinion.— But besides this, at the very entrance of our disputation we have thought it should be warned, namely that in all controversies those things must be distinguished concerning which, without injury to faith, each one is free to think variously and differently: as being things which the catholic Church allows to be held in opinions, from those things which are disputed whether they are dissonant from the canonical Scriptures or not. That indeed (to speak peaceably of both) is perhaps less guarded by our adversaries, but not sufficiently by our own either. For whatever doctrine of some one of our doctors the Lutherans happen to stumble upon, as if the whole school of theologians among us upheld it as faith, they so sharply attack and assail it, and strive to persuade their peoples that it is our faith: whereas very many of them are held among us by grave doctors as of no probability. On the other hand, some of ours defend some opinion of their own school so obstinately, as if, once it were convicted, danger threatened the orthodox faith. Therefore, when faith is at issue, let us not vex the people with opinions and tenets of this or another school. Concerning which it is enough to dispute within the school. But the things which pertain to the faith of CHRIST, let them be entirely such as we discuss with modesty and charity: so far as the mercy of God, there may be one confession of faith for us, and let us obey the same Church. Where that which cannot possibly come first, the end of discords, will come to be. But if it should more often happen to approve the opinion of some doctor (which is very often necessary), let us make our readers warned that it is a human persuasion, not a divine persuasion.