Tractatus de Gratia Divina Actuali

Just as, however, having regard to one and the same salutary act, one and the same is the exciting, calling, prevenient, operating, and antecedent grace, so likewise one and the same is the assisting, subsequent, cooperating, and concomitant grace. Indeed this latter does not differ from the former except on account of the different relations which grace has to the salutary act according as the act itself is posited or not posited; but in reality the exciting and assisting grace, the operating and cooperating grace, etc., are the same.

I. Exciting grace is the interior motion of illumination and inspiration of the elevated faculties, by which man is excited from sin, from torpor, from sloth, or from a state of inactivity, to act piously. It is also wont to be called the grace of calling or the calling grace, because through it we are called to the exercise of virtue. We said an interior motion: for although excitation and calling can also take place extrinsically, nevertheless, when exciting grace is spoken of simply, an interior grace is understood. Assisting grace, which is opposed to exciting grace, is taken in a stricter sense. For by itself the name of assisting grace, like the name of help or assistance, can belong to any grace. Assisting grace, therefore, taken specifically, is that by which the will is assisted to will and to do that to which it was solicited through the exciting grace. Mention of both graces occurs in the Scriptures. 2. Timoth. I, 9. Who hath called us with his holy calling. Apocal. III, 20. Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man shall hear my voice and open to me the door, I will come in to him. Rom. VIII, 26. The Spirit helpeth our infirmity. Psal. LXIX, 1. O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me. August. de pecc. mer. et rem. I. II, c. 18. «That we convert ourselves to God, we cannot, unless He Himself exciting and assisting.» Bernardus De Grat. et lib. arbit. c. 13. «Our efforts are vain, if they are not assisted, and nothing, if they are not excited.»

The differences between the two graces are these. 1) Exciting grace is the interior motion of illumination and inspiration of the elevated faculties, by which man is excited from sin, from torpor, from sloth, or from a state of inactivity, to act piously. 2) Assisting grace is that by which the will is assisted to will and to do that to which it was solicited through the exciting grace. The exciting is in us without us, insofar as it does not depend on our free power that we are excited or called; but assisting grace is in us and with us, insofar as the free consent of the will is present together with it, without which grace cannot be assisting. 2) Exciting grace can exist alone, without assisting grace following; for we can not consent to the calling: but assisting grace presupposes exciting grace; for it assists the will to will and to do that to which it has been called. Whence 3) the office of exciting grace is fulfilled by the calling alone, even if the consent of the will is lacking: but the office of assisting grace is fulfilled with the consent of the will.

Consider that, when exciting grace is spoken of, if by the name of grace God exciting is understood, then grace excites efficiently; but if by the name of grace is understood that vital act elicited by the faculty by the power of God, then grace excites formally, for that act is the formal calling or excitation itself.

II. Operating and cooperating grace are so distinguished that that is called operating which does something in us without us: but cooperating, that which does something in us, with the free will consenting at the same time. «For the operation of some effect is not attributed to the mobile, but to the mover; in that effect, therefore, in which our mind is moved and does not move (i.e., does not determine itself), but God alone is the mover, the operation is attributed to God, and according to this it is called operating grace. But in that effect 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.» Thus St. Thomas, Ia. I°e, q. CXI. a. 2. 1) The appellation of operating grace occurs in Philip. II, 13: It is God who worketh in you both to will and to accomplish: of cooperating, Marci XVI, 20: they preached everywhere, the Lord cooperating. Augustine hands down both in De Grat. et lib. arb. c. 17. «Who had begun to give that, even if small, charity, unless He who prepares the will and cooperates.»

¹ By cooperating He perfects what He begins by operating? Since He Himself operates that we may will, beginning, who cooperates with those who will, perfecting; and that we may will, He operates without us; but when we will, and so will that we may act, He cooperates with us: nevertheless, without Him either operating that we may will, or cooperating when we will, we avail nothing for the good works of piety.

It is asked which grace is that to which the name of operating belongs, and to which the name of cooperating. The opinion of theologians is not one. For some call operating grace that which, in a certain series of operations, concurs to the first deliberate consent, and cooperating, that which concurs to the other subsequent operations (see Bellarm. De Grat. et lib. arb. I. I. c. 14.). Others teach that operating grace is that which operates in us the free intention of the end, and cooperating, that which brings about the choice of the means (thus Ripalda reports, De Ente super. D. CXII, Sect. 2. n. 10.). Others, with St. Thomas, loc. cit., call operating grace that by which God operates the interior act, and cooperating, that by which He operates the exterior act commanded by the will. Finally, others will operating grace to be the same as exciting, and cooperating to be the same as assisting. Thus Ruiz, De Providentia Tract. IV. Disp. 29; Ripalda, loc. cit., and many others.

Now, if the matter is considered in itself, there is none of these opinions which is not probable; nevertheless, when actual grace is divided into operating and cooperating, if account is taken of the manner of speaking of Augustine and of the Synod of Trent, and operating grace is taken strictly as it is opposed to cooperating, the last opinion is to be preferred. Surely, according to Augustine in the testimony cited, operating grace is that which begins the salutary work; it is therefore the first grace: but the first grace is the exciting or calling grace; cooperating grace, on the contrary, is that which follows the incipient or exciting grace and operates together with the freely consenting will: but this is the assisting grace. Therefore. Likewise, Conc. Trident. Sess. VI. c. 5: it says that «the beginning of justification in adults is to be taken from the calling of God, by which, while no merits of theirs exist, they are called; so that... through His exciting and assisting grace they may be disposed, by freely assenting to the same grace, to convert themselves to their own justification.» When we assent to the exciting grace, it exists as assisting, and in assenting to it we cooperate; moreover, if we cooperate with it, it itself also cooperates with us: therefore cooperating grace is assisting grace, and operating grace is exciting grace. «Grace itself prevents the will by preparing it, that it may will the good, and assists the prepared will, that it may perfect it. This is operating and cooperating grace. For operating grace prepares man's will, that it may will the good: cooperating grace assists, lest it will in vain.»The Master in II. D. 25. at the end, and at the beginning of 26.

And indeed in truth, if a division is made between operating and cooperating grace, that will properly be operating grace which is in no way cooperating, but only operating; but that will be cooperating which is not only operating, but in some way also cooperating: but only exciting grace is only operating, and assisting grace is always cooperating; therefore exciting grace and operating grace are the same, and assisting grace and cooperating grace are the same.

III. Mention of prevenient and subsequent grace is frequent. Psal. LVIII, 11. Misericordia eius praeveniet me. Psal. XXII, 6. Misericordia tua subsequetur me omnibus diebus vitae meae. Of both Augustine makes mention, De nat. et grat. C. 31. «He prevents, that we may be healed; He follows, that, healed, we may also be invigorated.»And the Church in the Oration of the XVI. Sunday after Pentecost: May Thy grace, we beseech Thee, O Lord, always both prevent and follow us, and make us continually intent upon good works.»

Again, the opinion of theologians is not one concerning the subject of both appellations. For besides the fact that some will this division to divide habitual grace, so that it is called prevenient insofar as it sanctifies us apart from our merits, and subsequent insofar as it is the principle of merit in the works which are afterwards done; those also who refer this division to actual grace do not take it in the same way. For according to some, that series of actual graces is called prevenient grace which precedes justification, and subsequent, that which follows justification. And the testimony of Fulgentius is adduced, De Incarn. et grat. c. 11. «He prevents the impious, that he may become just; He follows the just, that he may not become impious.»Others will either that prevenient grace is that which operates the interior act, and subsequent, that which affords help for the execution of the work, to which the will consents; or that prevenient grace is that which is given for a certain first act, and subsequent, that which is given for perfecting... that which was begun through that act. Augustine seems to have indicated this, Enchir., c. 32. «He prevents the unwilling, that he may will; He follows the willing, lest he will in vain.» Others, more generally, since there are many graces and they succeed one another in a continuous series, call that one prevenient which, in the series of graces, precedes another, and subsequent, that which follows, so that the same grace, according as it is compared with another either preceding or following, is subsequent or prevenient: s. Thomas I. II. q. CXI. a. 3. Finally, others will prevenient grace to be the same as exciting, and subsequent the same as assisting. Cf. Ripalda, loc. cit.

Moreover, the same is to be said by us as in the other division. By themselves such appellations can be accommodated to all the members of the divisions which theologians put forward. We note, however, 1) that by the name of prevenient grace the exciting grace is signified by the Synod of Trent, loc. cit.; for it says that «the beginning of justification in adults is to be taken from the prevenient grace of God through I. f., i.e., from His calling», etc. We note, 2) that the appellation of prevenient belongs to nothing more than to the exciting; for this prevents every consent of the will. Therefore exciting grace is most properly called prevenient, and if one and the same work is considered, with respect to it exciting grace and prevenient grace are the same. But if the prevenient is the same as the exciting, the subsequent, which is divided against the prevenient, will be the same as that which is divided against the exciting, i.e., the assisting. Prevenient grace and subsequent grace, therefore, having regard to one and the same work, can be so defined that the prevenient is called that which prepares the will, that it may will the good; the subsequent, that by which the prepared will actually wills the good. Moreover, of the prevenient, one kind is purely prevenient, namely that which in a certain series of graces is first and is situated in indeliberate acts; the other kind is simply prevenient, which prepares the will for the work.

IV. Trent makes mention of antecedent and concomitant grace, Sess. VI, c. 16, saying that Christ infuses into the justified a power which always precedes, accompanies, and follows good works.» Where you see subsequent grace taken in the second or third of the earlier senses which we have just explained. For antecedent and concomitant by themselves signify clearly enough both that grace which prevents and excites and that which assists and cooperates; nor is there any new question in this matter; wherefore a question that could occur is to be solved in the same way as the preceding ones.

Thus the divisions of actual grace in common use have been set forth, and it has been proved that, if account be taken of at least one and the same work to which grace is referred, the same grace is exciting, operative, prevenient, and antecedent grace; and the same grace, in turn, is helping, cooperating, subsequent, and concomitant grace. So Vasquez, according to the doctrine of the Fathers, in Ia II^ae, disp. CLXXXV, c. 9.

V. But although among these there exists a real identity, nevertheless the formalities expressed by these names are not altogether the same, which is the reason for the multiplication of the names. Indeed, when grace is called exciting or calling, the proper office of this grace is signified, or its formal ratio; when it is called operative, its special relation to its cause, which is God, is signified; when it is called prevenient or antecedent, its relation to the subject to whom it is conferred without the latter's consent is signified. Likewise, when grace is called helping, cooperating, concomitant, what is signified is indeed the free consent of the will, which acts with grace; but when it is called helping grace, its necessity is signified specifically; when it is called cooperating, its influx into the act is signified specifically; when it is called concomitant, the free power of the will is signified specifically. But when it is called subsequent, its relation of succession to prevenient grace is signified.

VI. We say moreover that the grace which is set forth under this manifold appellation is the same in reality and differs only in concept; namely, that it is really the same grace whether it be exciting and helping, or operative and cooperating, and so on, if account be taken of one and the same act to which they concur; and that it is distinguished only on account of the different relations and the different effects of the same grace. So also Vasquez, I. c. and l. p., disp. XCVIII, c. 2. We are speaking, however, of helping grace, which is placed in a vital act, or also includes that act. We do not understand by it the mere operation of God, which, after the will has been excited, comes on concurring with the will operating; this indeed is what some understand by the name of helping grace. But we prove this point as follows. Exciting grace comprises the intrinsic elevation of the faculties to the supernatural order, the vital acts of the intellect and of the will, which are indeliberate; for exciting grace is in us without us. Now, when the faculties of the soul have been elevated to the supernatural order, i.e., the soul is ready to act according to obediential potency and is instructed in act, through illumination and inspiration, with a determined knowledge and a determined actual propensity suited to the supernatural order, it is able to will and to do that to which it is bent through illumination and inspiration; and it is so able that, besides the concurrence always necessary for any action, nothing else is required in order that it may be able to act. For it is completely constituted in first act in the supernatural order; just as the complete first act of the will in the natural order is constituted by natural power and by the indeliberate act following upon cognition. But when the will is able to will and to act, it does what it freely wills; but then the principle of this act is the faculty elevated and instructed by such illumination and such inspiration, which flow into the free act; therefore then exciting grace obtains its effect and becomes helping, because through it the will acts. For this reason exciting grace and helping grace are really the same. So indeed Vasquez explains in the place just cited. Whence also St. Thomas, I. II., q. CXI, a. 2, ad 4: «Operative grace and cooperative grace are the same, but are distinguished according to their different effects.» And art. 3, ad 2: «Grace is not diversified by the fact that it is prevenient and subsequent according to essence, but only according to effects, just as has been said also of operative and cooperative grace.» In sum, prevenient grace is the same in reality as sufficient grace; helping grace is the same as that grace which becomes efficacious: whoever contends that efficacious grace is the same as that grace which, on account of the will's dissent, could have remained purely sufficient, must also concede what we now defend; and the arguments which prove it, and which we will bring forward in their proper place, establish the same thing equally.

And indeed, if besides the prevenient illumination and inspiration something else were required in the will in order that the act be free and meritorious, this would either be some vital act or some non-vital quality; but not the first, because the vital act is present by which the illumination and the inspiration are contained; nor the second, because we have already proved that these qualities are wrongly intruded: therefore.

VII. You will say that the concurrence of God is demanded, which is helping grace. I answer that helping grace is only for the good, that the concurrence of God is for any act whatsoever; moreover, that helping grace is something created in us, proceeding indeed from God, through which the faculty in the supernatural order is constituted in first act, ready for second act, and by which the faculty acts when it wills. But just as in the natural order a created cause, even when in first act, does not come to second act unless God concurs, so too in the supernatural order the same must be thought.

Now the concurrence of God (which in God is the efficacious will that the act exist, if the will acts, a matter treated elsewhere) places nothing real in the creature except the act itself, i.e., the effect of the second cause; and this holds for both orders, whether natural or supernatural; since in this order too we have causes in first act, ready for act, and acting. Therefore the concurrence in the supernatural order toward the salutary act Since this concurrence of God is required for every action of creatures, it is demanded also for eliciting the indeliberate acts by which purely prevenient grace is contained presupposes the will constituted in first act, and therefore instructed with exciting grace. When the will acts by the help of that grace inhering in it, the divine concurrence is also present; but it places nothing in the creature that pertains to first act, but only places second act together with the elevated will, just as in the natural order it places second act together with the natural faculty naturally prepared. But the elevated will eliciting second act is now indeed the will instructed with helping grace; therefore helping grace is one thing, and the concurrence of God another.

Therefore, if the discourse be about created grace, and it is of this that we are really speaking, exciting grace and helping grace are the same, and consequently operative and cooperative grace are the same, etc., which was to be demonstrated.

You will say that helping grace must be simultaneous with the good work which is done through it; but prevenient grace is not simultaneous, but prior; for it precedes. I answer that prevenient grace indeed precedes and prepares the will, but that the same grace does not abandon the will when the will acts. Certainly the elevation of the faculty does not cease: the indeliberate motions of the intellect and of the will are simultaneous with the deliberate act, which is evident from the fact that when we choose something, we choose because we know that it is good and because it pleases; and knowing it and taking complacence in it (which knowledge and complacence were indeliberate acts excited by God) we choose: therefore.

These graces, however, differ in concept. For 2) exciting, operative, prevenient grace is related as a faculty in first act; helping, cooperating, subsequent grace, however, as the same faculty in second act. 2) Exciting, operative, prevenient grace, placed in the indeliberate acts, pertains to the faculty acting physically and necessarily; helping, cooperating, concomitant grace, however, pertains to the faculty always acting freely and morally. 3) The effect of exciting grace (which effect can properly be called such if God exciting and operating be considered) is the indeliberate act, at least per se; the effect of the helping cause, however, is the deliberate act. I say per se, because (as we saw in Th. XII) even a deliberate act can have the character of grace which is the principle of another meritorious work. Hence 2) exciting, operative, prevenient, antecedent grace, with respect to its own proper and formal effect, is efficacious even if free consent does not follow; not so, however, helping, cooperating, concomitant, subsequent grace, which cannot exist without it.

VIII. Suarez contends (De Gratia I. III, cc. 13. 16.) that helping grace is distinguished from exciting grace. And indeed what he brings forward in c. 13 proves only that distinction of reason which we defend. For his argument is this: because exciting grace is given to man before he freely operates, whereas helping grace is given only when he operates. But just as in the natural order the principle of operation is not one thing and another, whether it be in first act or in second act, so there is not really one grace which precedes assent and another which produces it. Suarez adds that the Council of Trent, Sess. VI, c. 5, distinguishes a twofold grace, exciting and helping, and very often repeats these two, and distinguishes a twofold office of the will, namely of assenting to grace and of cooperating with it, which offices are to be referred to a twofold grace; for we assent to the exciting grace and cooperate with the helping grace. But these considerations too prove not two graces in reality, but a twofold function of grace, which is at one time exciting and at another also, with us cooperating, helping; but in cooperating we certainly assent to it, i.e., we receive it and act according to it. Therefore from these considerations Suarez would not seem to teach that there are two graces really distinct, but only that exciting and helping are distinguished by reason: for what he says, that helping grace is a special benefit, is indeed true, just as power together with act is a greater good than power alone; but this does not prove that there are two graces in reality (we call grace that which is the principle of the salutary action). Helping grace is also a greater benefit than exciting grace alone, if it be compared with the divine predestination of grace under conditional knowledge, a matter to be treated in its place. But the same Suarez, in c. 16, teaches that helping grace adds a new help and benefit in such a way that what helping grace adds beyond exciting grace is something really distinct from it. The reason is this: because helping grace adds a real influx into the deliberate consent of the will, and this influx is really distinguished from the act of exciting grace: therefore. The minor is proved; because the motion of exciting grace and the deliberate act of the will or of the intellect are really distinguished; but this influx of helping grace is really the same as the deliberate act, because it is nothing other than its action insofar as it proceeds from some supernatural principle: therefore. Namely, the motion of exciting grace, which is nothing other than exciting grace itself formally situated in the indeliberate act or motion, is indeed different from the deliberate act; but this deliberate act depends on that motion and is made by its power; for it depends on and is made by the will elevated, illustrated, and inspired, and thus perfectly constituted in first act; it is made indeed with God concurring, but, as we have already warned, the concurrence places nothing as regards the constitution of the first act. It is certain, however, that the τὸ esse in actu primo completo and the τὸ esse in actu secundo do not differ according to more and less of the powers for acting, but only according to the effect, which either exists or does not. Therefore the influx from which the deliberate act proceeds is the influx of prevenient grace; and take care not to believe that this influx is something really distinct from the grace itself that flows in: for in reality it is nothing other than the salutary act placed by the power of prevenient grace, which thus becomes helping, i.e., the cause of the act.

From this, moreover, it came about that Suarez really distinguished these two graces, because he judges that exciting grace influences the will only morally; while, on the contrary, he asserts for helping grace a physical influx. But exciting grace is the same as prevenient and operative grace, for it comprises the elevation of the faculty, the illumination, the inspiration, by which the will is prepared and powers are conferred upon it for acting.

IX. In this thesis we have given the definitions of exciting, operative, prevenient grace, etc., according to the common sense of the School. Those definitions, however, which we have preferred, Jansenius disapproves (De Gratia Christi L. IV. c. 17.), contending that they are foreign to the mind of Scripture, the Fathers, and the Church. «For, as he himself says, those Scholastics (namely those whom we have followed in handing down the notions of these divisions) think that prevenient and exciting graces are all those which are conferred beforehand upon the power of the will, whether it be unwilling or already willing, whether averse or already converted, whether weak or perfect, for actually willing and doing. Of these, however, only that grace is prevenient, operative, exciting in the sense of the ancients which makes the will willing from unwilling, converted from averse, just from unjust. The helping, cooperating, and subsequent graces, on the other hand, the Scholastics call all those which, after the indeliberate motions sent into the will, flow into and concur with the power of the will itself in producing the consent of the will, whether the first or any others throughout the whole of life. Yet the Fathers call no graces subsequent or cooperating or helping those which concur with the power of the will converting itself for the first time from darkness to light, from creature to Creator, from injustice to justice, whether by preceding or by accompanying and simultaneously flowing in. For all that grace, of whatever sort it may have been... is called exciting.» But we warn 1) that the sense approved by Jansenius was already known to the Scholastics, was employed by many, and has also been brought forward by us. 2) The sense disapproved by Jansenius, if abstraction be made from the appellations by which it is set forth, contains true doctrine and a real object; for it is true that for any act whatsoever the grace of God precedes us and cooperates with us. Wherefore 3) there will be some question about words. But moreover 4) certain things are false which Jansenius here affirms. Is it really true that operative grace, in the manner of the ancients, is not called such except that grace by which the will is converted from injustice to justice? How then did the Apostle say, Philipp. II. 13., that God works in us not only the willing, which Jansenius could refer to conversion (although wrongly, if the context be weighed), but also the accomplishing, which presupposes a will already converted? And why did Augustine say, de Grat. et lib. arbit., c. 17., «Without Him (i.e., God), whether operating that we may will or cooperating when we will, nothing» can we avail? These words are most general and embrace every good act of the just. Again, if prevenient grace, in the manner of the ancients, signifies only that grace by which, with no preceding merit, the will is converted from sin to justice, why does the Church teach all the faithful to pray: «Anticipate, we beseech Thee, O Lord, our actions by inspiring and accompany them by helping» and «May Thy grace, we beseech Thee, O Lord, always precede and follow us, and make us ever intent upon good works»? Why does Caelestinus say in Auctorr. Sedis Apost., c. 12.: «We do not doubt that all the merits of man are preceded by the grace of God, through which it comes about that we begin both to will and to do something good»namely, the grace of God precedes each individual good act. Nor is Augustine foreign to this usage, who in Oper. imperf. I. I. e. 95. calls prevenient grace that grace by which, as the Apostle says, God works in you the willing too; moreover, the Apostle, addressing the faithful, by this argument gives them heart for working out their own salvation; it is therefore grace given to those already converted. Therefore, since the sense which the Scholastics subject to those appellations is true in itself, and the use of those appellations for signifying the same thing is frequent enough in the Schools, was also in use among the ancients, and has been approved by the Church, there is no reason why this manner of speaking should be disapproved.

Again, Jansenius, ibid., c. 12., disapproves the explanation commonly handed down by the theologians of that phrase which occurs in Augustine and the other Fathers, by which the office of prevenient grace is designated, namely, that God works in us without us; which the theologians explain thus, i.e., without us freely cooperating, although physically acting, i.e., eliciting a vital act. For Jansenius wants it to be taken in this way, namely, without us meriting, so that any preceding merit is excluded. But although it is true that the first prevenient grace excludes any merit, we nevertheless deny that that phrase is to be taken as Jansenius wants. Certainly let the already cited words of Augustine be weighed. «He works that we may will, beginning, who cooperates with those willing, perfecting; and that we may will, He works without us; but when we will, and so will that we do, He cooperates with us.» It is manifest from the context that those words, 'without us', are to be completed in this way, i.e., without us operating, so that there exists an opposition with that which is said of God: He operates, to which it is opposed.