Tractatus de Gratia Divina Actuali
Domenico Palmieri (1829–1909)
First published 1885
Dominicus Palmieri, S.J.'s Tractatus de gratia divina actuali (Gulpen, 1885) is a systematic Roman-school treatise on actual grace. After defining grace and its divisions, Palmieri examines its effects, necessity for fallen humanity, gratuitous character, efficacy, distribution, and relation to predestination, engaging Augustine, the Fathers, councils, Jansenism, and the scholastic disputes over physical predetermination. The sixty-two-thesis format exemplifies late nineteenth-century neo-scholastic dogmatic method: historical authorities are gathered into tightly argued theological conclusions. Schola presents the Latin work from the 1885 edition.
Prolegomenon I: Prolegomenon. De notione et partitionibus praecipuis gratiae divinae
Thesis I: Gratia, prout dicitur de bono aliquo alteri collato, definitur: beneficium ex benevolentia collatum citra exigentiam eius, cui confertur: ad quam definitionem redit illa communis Scholasticorum: donum gratis datum.
Thesis II: Gratia creata tum in donum naturale tum in donum supernaturale dispesci potest: supernaturale tamen donum potiore iure et magis proprie gratia dicitur; ita ut ea dona in ipsa ratione gratiae specifice differant.
Thesis III: Ratione habita tum status sive integritatis sive lapsus creaturae rationalis, tum principii meritori, quod proprium est alterius status, gratia supernaturalis distinguitur in gratiam Dei et gratiam Christi.
Thesis IV: Gratia supernaturalis alia est externa, alia interna.
Thesis V: Rursus gratia supernaturalis dividi debet in gratiam gratis datam, et gratiam gratum facientem, quae potior est illâ.
Thesis VI: Gratia gratum faciens alia est in habitu sita et permanens, alia actualis et transiens.
Caput I: De Gratiae actualis natura
Articulus I: De iis, quibus gratiae actualis ratio competit
Thesis I: Ad gratias actuales spectant mentis illustrationes tum quae tantum ab extrinseco excitantur in nobis, tum potissimum quas operatur quoque immediate Spiritus in mente nostra.
Thesis II: Ad gratiam actualem spectant quoque inspirationes voluntatis tum mediatae tum immediatae atque inspirationes immediatae inter gratias actuales enumeratas principem obtinent locum.
Thesis III: Gratiae actuales illustrationis et inspirationis continentur certe actibus vitalibus intellectus et voluntatis.
Thesis IV: Actus vitales, quibus continetur gratia actualis illustrationis et inspirationis, quae principium est deliberati actus et operis boni, sunt primo quidem actus indeliberati utriusque facultatis tum vero etiam actus deliberati.
Thesis V: Ex quo corollarii instar consequitur inter auxilia, quibus voluntas adiuvatur, aliqua exsistere, quae sint per se efficacia.
I. An absolute deliberate act of the will willing to please God, to keep the law, to resist temptations, is, as we have proved, actual grace or assistance; but this act is of such a kind that, while it exists, that which is proposed by that act cannot fail to be, and it alone can be lacking if that act ceases. Therefore that good will is efficacious, and intrinsically, that is, by its own nature efficacious of further good; just as an absolute intention of the end efficaciously moves by its own nature to the choice of means, and an absolute will of believing, of keeping the precept, efficaciously moves by its own nature to the act of faith, to the observance of the precept. There is therefore some assistance placed in a deliberate act that is efficacious by itself, not indeed with an efficacy that would destroy free choice, but with an efficacy that presupposes free will aided by grace and depends on it.
II. To this point certain testimonies of Augustine look, in which the grace of God is set forth in such a way that it is intrinsically bound to its effect, that is, is efficacious by itself. He speaks, namely, of that grace which consists in a deliberate act, which is a gift of God and by itself efficacious of a further meritorious act. Such is De Grat. et lib. arbit. c. 16: «It is certain that we act when we act, but He makes us act by supplying the most efficacious powers to the will. When He says: I will make you act, what else does He say, but I will take away from you a heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh, whereby you act? and what is this, but I will take away the hard heart, whereby you did not act, and give you an obedient heart, whereby you act?" Truly an obedient heart cannot exist and the observance of the law not exist; but an obedient heart is an assistance placed in a deliberate act, which, since it is a gift of God and is efficacious by itself of further good, can and must be called the grace and assistance of God, and a most efficacious assistance. To the same point looks what Augustine says in De Corrept. et Grat. c. 11: «that the first man had received from God the power, if he willed; but he did not have the willing that he was able to have, for if he had had it, he would have persevered.» For this willing, which he did not receive, is a deliberate act of the will efficacious of persevering, that is, of obeying God. And of the gift of perseverance c. 8: «But why, he says, is the grace of God not given according to the merits of men? I answer, because God is merciful. Why then, he says, not to all? And here I answer, because God is a (just) judge.» The grace, which is not given to all, is grace placed in a deliberate act, that is, that prevenient grace infallibly connected with the deliberate act.
NOTE. We have just proved that deliberate acts also belong to actual graces, and that the same are efficacious by themselves; how, however, these graces are conferred upon us, we have not said, nor is it the question of this place.