Tractatus de Gratia Divina Actuali

I. Impetration, properly so called, is a moral motion of the liberality or mercy of someone through the humble supplication of another. Wherefore the power of impetrating is properly attributed to prayer. The question is whether impetration is a kind of merit. If the matter is considered materially, it is evident that man's prayer to God, since it is a good act, conducive to salvation and offering obedience to God, is also a meritorious act. But if both are considered formally, is the account of impetration one thing and the account of merit another, so that impetration in its essence includes no account of merit; or, albeit imperfectly, is impetration also contained under the genus of merit? Certain theologians, as Vasquez (1°. 2ae. D. 216. c. 4.), do not distinguish between impetration and congruous merit. Suarez (De Grat. L. XII. c. 34.) distinguishes in such a way that he assigns impetration, as proper, to prayer alone, while merit is common to all works. Ripalda (De E. S. D. XV. § I.) notes that impetration chiefly and primarily denotes the power of obtaining something from a superior by prayers, which St. Thomas taught in 1. 2ae, q. LXXXIII. aa. 15. 16., distinguishing in prayer the efficacy of meriting, common to all works, from the efficacy of impetrating, proper to prayer. There is added the common way of speaking of theologians who assert that among the acts of the virtues prayer is more impetratory before God, and the act of charity more meritorious. Therefore in the strict and principal signification impetration denotes the power of bending another, which is proper to humble prayers.

This same point is declared a priori as follows. For God is moved in one way by merits, in another way by the prayers of the faithful; therefore the motion proper to pious prayers is rightly signified by impetration, since it cannot be signified by any more apt word. The proof of the antecedent comes down to this. The motion of God on account of merits rests upon justice or upon a certain equity; but the motion proper to impetration rests upon the mercy of him who is prayed to: indeed, in him who prays, the exclusion of any positive demerit is presupposed, of such a kind that it could impede the exercise of the other's mercy, but this is presupposed as a condition or disposition of the subject; yet no positive merit is presupposed beyond what is intrinsic to the prayer itself, for prayer itself is certainly a certain obedience rendered to him who is entreated; but again, this merit is so constituted that on account of it the other is moved properly inasmuch as he is merciful and liberal, not inasmuch as he is just or acting from a certain equity, but inasmuch as he freely lets himself be bent out of his innate goodness on account of another's misery: this, however, is the motion proper to impetration, by which mercy is bent, and so it is proper to prayer to impetrate. Thus a poor man asking alms of a rich man certainly renders him obedience, but this obedience, from the intention of the poor man and the acceptance of the rich man, is directed to this, that it bend his liberality and mercy and as it were determine them to act by the display of his misery; so that the reason why the rich man is bent is that out of his innate goodness he lets himself be bent to relieving the misery of the poor man, not on account of any exigency of his. Let the same be said of God insofar as prayers impetrate before him.

Therefore impetration agrees with merit; because the prayer that impetrates is a certain obedience in honor of another, nor can a prayer be acceptable which is not such: it differs from merit, or from congruous merit strictly taken, because prayer as such is purely referred to the mercy or liberality of God and is directed to bending it, which accordingly, if it is bent, is bent because He freely lets Himself be bent out of His innate goodness: on the contrary, merit is referred to justice or benevolent equity.

But because in congruous merit mercy also has a place, since nothing is owed to it from justice properly so called, hence congruous merit too is wont to be called impetration, and we are said to impetrate what we obtain by merits of this kind. Whence the Council of Trent, Sess. XIV. c. 4., says that attrition impetrates grace in the sacrament.

Of Penance. Hence, conversely, impetration is reckoned under the genus of congruous merit; for prayer bends mercy and is a certain obedience: whence Augustine used to say of the gift of perseverance that it can be suppliantly merited. It is clear, nevertheless, from what has been said, that impetration strictly taken, if it is reckoned under congruous merit, constitutes a certain proper species, inasmuch as it moves not the justice or equity, but the mercy of God.

Finally, just as in the act of prayer the account of impetration and the account of merit can be distinguished, so too the impetratory power can be participated in by other meritorious works: whence theologians distinguish in every good work the account of merit and of impetration. The account of merit, because the good work is an obedience exacting a reward; the account of impetration, because even setting aside the fact that the good work is one exacting a reward, from the mere fact that the good act is an obedience it can move the mercy of God to confer goods.

We are speaking, however, of the impetratory power of prayers not only in first act, but also in second act (cf. what we said about merit in Th. XXX. p. 1.). We add in the thesis, at least having regard to this order of Providence in which we are situated. For whether in another order of Providence, or whether it is absolutely possible that nature impetrate grace by its prayers, we shall discuss separately at the end of the thesis.

II. The question, therefore, comes back to this: whether God wills to accept the prayers of nature for conferring grace. The solution of this question depends upon the known will of God. For if it is certain that God does not will it, it is evident that no impetratory power, at least in second act, belongs to the prayers of nature with respect to grace. But it is a certain law that God wills not to be moved to confer supernatural gifts except by prayers made from grace, that is, by prayers of which He Himself is the inspirer and author. This is certain from the doctrine of Scripture and the Fathers, which we adduced in Th. XXXIII., by which doctrine there is asserted both the inability of nature to pray as it ought, that is, so that God be bent to confer grace, and hence the necessity of grace that we pray as we ought. Let the proof of this matter in that thesis, ibid. p. II., be compared; for there is no need to add other proofs.

You will say that the Fathers therefore teach the impotence of the prayer of nature because the Fathers consider prayer as a meritorious act, or because they do not distinguish the account of impetration from the account of merit, which belongs to prayer; for that reason indeed they deny the power of impetrating, because otherwise grace would be given according to merits.

I answer 1) that from this observation what we defend is confirmed; for it follows from it that according to the Fathers no prayer is accepted by God unless it is at the same time meritorious; for, this being supposed, it can be said that because nature cannot merit, neither can it pray in such a way as to impetrate. Therefore it is true that natural prayers have no power of impetrating; for they have no power of meriting, and so it is true that God does not will to accept the prayers of nature alone.

Furthermore 2) when the Fathers deny to natural prayer the power of impetrating grace, because otherwise grace would be given according to merits, they are to be said to have taken the signification of merit so broadly that it would comprehend whatever reason moves God to confer grace, on account of which it would be true in some sense that man begins the business of salvation and God follows, which the Massilians contended; and therefore the Fathers took merit so broadly that it would embrace the very power of impetrating. Therefore the Fathers also excluded from nature the power of impetrating by prayers.

Therefore in the present order at least, no efficacy of impetrating grace can be asserted for the prayers which nature pours forth by its own powers.

III. But if the question is raised whether it is repugnant that God be moved by the prayers of nature to confer grace, the opinion of Ripalda seems true to us, who denies it and asserts that it is absolutely possible that the impetratory power of grace be in the prayers of nature (De Ente Supern. Disp. XIX. Sect. 3.). Surely, as we have said, merit is to be distinguished formally from impetration. For in merit there is, before God's acceptance, some dignity of reward in first act, which is repaid out of justice or benevolent equity: but in impetration, as such, there is no dignity of reward which would be repaid out of justice or equity, but impetration is referred to the liberality or mercy of him who accepts the prayers and moves it. Whence that someone merits is not from the benign will alone of the other, who accepts the merit, but something is presupposed in the one meriting, which is a reason requiring a reward; although that thing by itself alone is not a sufficient reason, or it could have proceeded from another grace of the giver. Hence merit is opposed of itself to the gratuitousness of grace. But that someone impetrates, that proceeds from the pure mercy or liberality of him who hears the prayers; the mercy or benignity is the giver's own, who is such as to let himself be bent to the prayers of another who shows his misery. Therefore the power of impetrating does not of itself stand in the way of the gratuitousness of any gift.

Now indeed God could have willed to be bent even by the prayers of nature alone: for in this no repugnance appears. And in very truth the poverty of nature alone moved divine liberality to elevate it, and the misery of fallen nature alone moved divine mercy to redeem nature: but the liberality and mercy which poor and miserable nature stirred up, nature itself could certainly have stirred up by entreating, that is, by confessing its poverty and misery to God and imploring his beneficence; therefore if God had so willed, He could also have been bent by the prayers of nature.

You will say that nature could not have entreated grace, because it would have lacked knowledge of it.

I answer 1) that this is entirely per accidens, so far as this question is concerned.

I answer 2) that nature by itself could have had sufficient knowledge for praying. For rational nature could have thought that God, certainly visible to Himself, could perhaps be visible to created intellects; nay, in this matter it could have known that there is no repugnance: but even the former cognition was sufficient to move the will to desire and ask this gratuitous gift from God.

From these things, however, it is not lawful to infer that the prayers of nature have absolutely, in first act, the power of impetrating, and that it is rendered futile by the denied acceptance of God: but only that the power of impetrating is in them hypothetically, if namely God should deign to accept. For prayers as such do not move by impetrating anyone except him who wills to let himself be bent. Wherefore the prayers of nature neither have absolutely the power of impetrating grace in first act, nor do they have it in any way in the present order of Providence; but they could have had it in another order.