Tractatus de Gratia Divina Actuali

I. We presuppose 1) that the vital acts of the senses precede the rational acts; 2) that the sensitive appetite is here assumed to be a faculty distinct from the will; for if it is the same faculty, what has been said in general about the indeliberate acts of the will is to be understood of the will insofar as it is also inclined toward sensible things. But if the sensitive appetite is a distinct faculty (which we by no means affirm), it can be asked whether, besides the acts of the will, the acts of this sensitive appetite can pertain to actual grace.

II. Therefore, in order that the indeliberate vital acts of the senses and of the appetite may obtain the character of actual grace, it is required and suffices that they be gratuitously excited in us by God and that they avail us for salutary works. Now it is evident a) that God can excite in the phantasy some determinate imagination, and indeed in two ways, namely either with no imagination preceding or with some imagination preceding. Furthermore, if some imagination precedes, many other imaginations can naturally be excited from it; but God can also determine one of these rather than another, namely that one which proposes an object fitting for the intellect. It is evident b) that God can excite in the appetite a determinate act of appetition. For, once some object is proposed through the sense, some act necessarily arises in the appetite; but this act is also naturally diverse, being either of pursuit or of flight, not only according to the diverse character of the object, but also according to the diverse disposition of the subject; so that, on account of the disposition contracted from a preceding direction of reason, even toward an object in itself delightful and apprehended by sense, 1° the appetite does not immediately blaze up, 2° but rather awaits the motion of the rational part and, following it, shrinks from the baseness, which is also sensible. These things are established by experience; and they are indeed more easily explained if it is the will itself that is borne toward good sensible objects (cf. de Deo Creant. Th. XLIV. n. 111). Consequently, when an object is proposed by the sense under a certain delightful character, a motion of flight and aversion is possible in the appetite. But God can excite in the appetite those motions that are possible to it, even if their natural disposition does not yet exist, i.e., that disposition contracted by the force of reason: God can therefore determine in the appetite those acts that are conformable to reason. Likewise, God can prevent the motions of the flesh from being excited, by which the imagination is sharpened and the appetite grows hot, whether mediately by removing extrinsic causes, or immediately by curbing those motions, or by exciting in the appetite opposite or diverse motions, or by presenting to the phantasy or the intellect diverse objects that call the mind more to themselves. It is evident c) that from a vehement delight of the spirit a certain delight is poured back into the sense, or that the sense also shares in the delight of the spirit; and this sensible delight contributes greatly to the exercise of virtue. But God, who can infuse any delight whatever into the spirit, will also be able to communicate delight to the sense accordingly. But if God excites in the sensitive part these motions, which we have so far enumerated, then He both works something gratuitous in man and works that which greatly contributes to salutary acts: therefore.

III. And in truth, that something occurs to us which stirs a pious thought in the mind pertains to the grace of the illumination of the mind, as Augustine teaches; but extrinsically the excitation of a fitting phantasm contributes most to this, which is indeed extrinsic to the intellect, but intrinsic to man. But the grace of inspiration, of which the Fathers speak, is such that it can belong also to the sensitive appetite. For that grace is called the inspiration of delight, through which what did not delight becomes sweet; and this lack of delight occurs most especially when we are attacked by concupiscence; but this sweetness can be excited in the sense itself. And indeed the Acts of the Martyrs bear witness that in many martyrs a sweetness of this kind was excited in the sense against the very pains of the body. Furthermore, the faithful are accustomed to ask of God not only victory against the impulses of the flesh, but also the cessation of the same (2. Corinth. XII, 8): but God bestows this grace either by removing extrinsic causes, or by acting physically on the organs of sense, or by exciting opposite or diverse acts of the appetite. Therefore such operations of God are to be numbered among the actual graces.

IV. You will ask whether sensitive acts of this kind are to be judged supernatural. I answer that they are certainly supernatural as regards the mode and by reason of the end to which they are ordered; which is enough for them to be grace supernatural in a certain respect. See more in Ripalda De Ente Supernat. D. XLIV. sect. 9.