Tractatus de Gratia Divina Actuali

I. «According to the common manner of speaking (says St. Thomas, 1ª 2ae q. CX, a. 1), grace is wont to be taken in three ways: in one way, for the love of someone, as we are wont to say that this soldier has the grace of the king, that is, the king holds him in favor; secondly, it is taken for some gift freely given, as we are wont to say: I do you this grace; thirdly, it is taken for the recompense of a freely given benefit, according to which we say that we give thanks for benefits.» Another signification of the same name can be added, namely insofar as it signifies that which draws love, to wit, the beauty and comeliness of a thing or person. It is clear that these significations are connected. Our discourse is about grace according to the second signification indicated by St. Thomas, namely insofar as it is understood as some good conferred upon another; which, in order that it be grace, requires the conditions set forth in the thesis. To explain, then, the definition: a benefit is a thing or action placed to the advantage or utility of another. Benevolence is the love by which we will good to another. Moreover, if account is taken of the disposition with which a benefit is conferred, one cannot act or do something for the good of another in only one way: for one can act unwillingly, and one can act spontaneously, and this either from love of oneself alone, which is the love of concupiscence, or from love of him on whom the benefit is conferred, which is the love of friendship or benevolence. It must further be noted that it is one thing to benefit another with benevolence, and another to benefit from benevolence. For we are said to benefit from benevolence when benevolent love is the reason why we confer a good on another; if this love is present only concomitantly, the benefit will have been conferred merely with benevolence. In the definition, however, the words "from benevolence" are taken in such a way that benevolence is the reason for benefiting.

II. True benevolence can be the reason for benefiting either inadequately or adequately. It is an inadequate reason when, besides it, there is another motive for benefiting, namely insofar as the good that is conferred is owed in some way, as can happen in the conferral of goods by distributive justice, or is even simply owed (whether it is owed directly to him on whom the good is conferred, or to another who requires that that good be conferred on someone), yet in such a way that, since it is physically free for a man not to do what he owes, he is drawn by love to discharge the debt. Benevolence is the adequate reason when, on the contrary, benevolent love is the whole reason why someone confers a good on another; so that the good is in no way owed either to him on whom it is in fact conferred, or to another who could require that that good be conferred on someone else, unless this very requirement has arisen from some gratuitous gift. Now both of these things are signified when it is said "apart from the exigency of him on whom it is conferred": for when someone does good to another because a third party has a right that good be done to him by the benefactor, the benefit is conferred not only on him who actually receives the good, but also on the other who requires it. Furthermore, a thing is then properly said to be conferred from benevolence when benevolence is the adequate reason of the conferral; so that insofar as a thing is not conferred from benevolence, neither is it grace on that account.

Therefore there are two elements by which the concept of grace is brought to completion: the benefit and gratuitous benevolence, the former holding the place of matter, the latter as it were of form.

III. Now, that this is properly the concept of that thing which is called gratia by the Latins, χάρις by the Greeks, and חֵן and חִנָּם by the Hebrews, when by these words there is signified that which is conferred by one person on another, is established by common usage, both profane and sacred.

Of profane usage Aristotle is the witness. For thus in II Rhetor., c. 7, he defines grace: «ἔστι δὲ χάρις, καθ᾽ ἣν λέγεται χάριν ἔχειν τῷ δεδωκότι, ἵνα ἐκείνου ἕνεκα, ἀλλ᾽ οὐχὶ αὑτοῦ τὸ ποιοῦν, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα ἐκείνῳ τι μέγα ᾖ, ἢ φθάνει δεόμενος, ἢ ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις, ὁμοίως, ἢ φίλων». «ἔστι δὲ ἡ χάρις ἡ δι᾽ ἣν ὁ ἔχων χάριν λέγεται παρέχειν τῷ δεομένῳ, οὐ δι᾽ ἄλλο τι, οὐδ᾽ ἵνα τι προσγένηται τῷ παρέχοντι, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα ἀγαθόν τι ᾖ τῷ παρεχομένῳ. μεγάλη δὲ ἡ χάρις ἔσται, ἐὰν διδῶται σφόδρα δεομένοις ἢ ἐὰν μεγάλα καὶ δυσχερῆ παρέχηται ἢ ἐν τοιούτοις κακοῖς ἢ ἐὰν ὁ εὐεργετῶν ᾖ μόνος ἢ πρῶτος ἢ μάλιστα εὐεργετῇ.»¹

As witnesses of sacred usage we give Augustine and Thomas: of whom the latter, in 1a 2ae q. CXI, a. 1, ad 2m, has this: «Gratia, secundum quod gratis datur, excludit rationem debiti. Potest autem intelligi duplex debitum, unum quidem ex merito proveniens, quod refertur ad personam, cuius est agere meritoria opera… Aliud est debitum secundum conditionem naturae: puta si dicamus, debitum esse homini quod habeat rationem et alia quae ad humanam pertinent naturam… Dona naturalia carent primo debito, non autem carent secundo. Sed dona supernaturalia utroque debito carent et ideo specialius sibi nomen gratiae vindicant.» Augustine, however, in De Gestis Pelagii, c. 14, says: «Ipsum gratiae nomen et eius nominis intellectus aufertur, si non gratis datur, sed eam qui dignus est accipit… Quisque dignus est, debitum est ei: si autem debitum est, gratia non est; gratia quippe donatur, debitum redditur. Gratia ergo donatur indignis, ut reddatur debitum dignis.» Furthermore, the universal Church approved this acceptation of grace by her suffrage, when she proscribed the error of the Pelagians, that the grace of God is given according to our merits; which opinion was reprobated for this reason, because if it is given on account of merits, it is no longer grace.

All these things are confirmed by biblical usage. For by the name of grace there is signified 1) the benefit itself: Act. XI, 17; Rom. I, 5. 2) the benevolence or favor of him from whom the benefit is received, and to this that phrase pertains by which χάρις is said to find grace before someone: Gen. VI, 7, 8; XXXIX, 1-4; Esther II, 17. also 3) gratuitous benevolence, so that a debt may be excluded: Rom. IV, 4; XI, 6; Ephes. II, 7, 8, 9. Cf. the use of the adverb חִנָּם, gratis: Gen. XXIX, 15; Exod. XXI, 2, 11; 2 Sam. XXIV, 24.

IV. It is manifest, therefore, by usage not only profane but sacred, that when grace is said, and by it is signified that which one person receives from another, what is really signified is a benefit conferred from gratuitous benevolence. This, accordingly, is the formal ratio of grace, namely that a gift be conferred from a benevolent heart, freely, that is, apart from any exigency of another; so that some benefit is called grace to the extent that it is freely conferred, and the greater the gratuitous character is, the more it is grace, even if perhaps it is not greater in the order of good. Hence, although in the biblical and ecclesiastical manner of speaking there is also called grace that which is repaid to our merits, or which is given to us on account of the merits of Christ, it is nevertheless called grace for this reason, insofar as in it the gratuitous character toward us at least has a place.

V. Grace is customarily defined by the scholastics as a gift freely given. That this definition expresses the same thing as the preceding one is clear by an extrinsic argument; for all the scholastics will the grace they define to be altogether gratuitous, proceeding to men from the sole benevolence of God. But this is also clear by an intrinsic argument, namely by an analysis of the terms. Surely he who says "gift" properly says some benefit which is given spontaneously and with no necessity, as Petavius warns in the place cited in the note above, a benefit, namely, whose reason of conferral is the sole benevolence of the giver. Nevertheless, because that which is conferred on account of some merit is also frequently wont to be called a gift, in order that the notion of merit may be expressly excluded, "freely given" is added, i.e., apart from any exigency of him on whom it is conferred, and therefore conferred from gratuitous benevolence. Whence Augustine, Tr. III in Ioann., n. D: »Quid est gratia? gratis data, quid est gratis data? donata, non reddita.« But he would be foolish who should disdain this definition, because grace is explained through the gratis, which seems to amount to the same thing. For the concept that underlies the gratis is more determined from the common manner of speaking than the concept that is expressed by the simple word gratia, and the notion of the unowed, or of what is conferred apart from any merit, appears more clearly in the τῇ gratis than in the τῇ gratia. Whence it came about that the Pelagians, although they did not shrink from calling certain divine gifts by the name of grace, nevertheless denied that this grace is freely given, but contended that the grace of God is given according to merits; the Fathers, on the contrary, maintained that the grace of God is freely given.

Corollary I. The principle of grace, therefore, is benevolence, and that an active benevolence, which namely diffuses itself into gifts. Hence the first grace is benevolence itself. For as St. Thomas says, I p., q. XXXVIII, a. 2: „Ratio gratuitae donationis est amor, ideo enim damus gratis alicui aliquid, quia volumus ei bonum. Primum ergo, quod damus ei, est amor, quo volumus ei bonum." For since love is toward another and for the good of another, it is rightly said that the love of the lover is given to the beloved. Therefore benevolence is the first gift, or first grace, which is given to those to whom we do good. And since it belongs to this gift not, indeed, to be from benevolence efficiently, but formally to be benevolence itself and to contain in itself the reason why it is given to another, it is assuredly the chief gift, when the formal ratio of grace is considered.

Corollary II. Since the divine benevolence, which is the fountain of the other gifts by which God has enriched his creatures, is eternal, some grace of God is eternal.

Note. For those about to deliver the divisions of divine grace, the beginning would have to be made from the first division, which is into uncreated and created grace; but since uncreated grace, which is the Holy Spirit and the whole Trinity, has been expressly treated in the Treatise on the Most Holy Trinity, in order that we may save time and pursue only those things that are proper to our treatise, we gladly pass it over here. We call "principal partitions" those which embrace, as it were, the highest genera, to which the rest can and ought to be reduced.