Tractatus de Gratia Divina Actuali

I. Since by good natural acts a man can negatively dispose himself for grace; hence, in order that an adult man may attain faith, a supernatural grace is indeed required, which immediately prepares him for faith, which grace can be manifold, one more or less mediate than another; yet a negative disposition for grace can be obtained through natural means or helps. Moreover, if faith is an end that must necessarily be attained, at least those means must be at hand by which a man doing what is in him may attain faith. But if you judge that no good act is done that is not supernatural, then the discussion can only be about grace properly so called. The demonstration of the thesis depends on the doctrine established elsewhere concerning the serious universal salvific will, which we presuppose.

II. But there is no need to declare in particular how God provides for the salvation of any infidel who labors under invincible ignorance. For it is certain that ways are not lacking to the Divine omnipotence by which it attains what it intends, nor must we be anxious about this matter. For if God wills to save men only through faith properly so called (for the proposition has been condemned which teaches: faith improperly so called from the testimony of creatures suffices for justification), since men, whether consenting to supernatural graces or first doing what is in them according to the strength of nature, God will certainly so provide for them that they can have faith. Moreover, the Church holds that graces are also conferred on infidels. Among those condemned by Alexander VIII on 7 December 1690 this is the 5th proposition: «Pagans, Jews, heretics, and others of this kind receive from Jesus Christ absolutely no influence: and hence you will rightly infer that in them there is a naked and unarmed will without any sufficient grace.» Cf. also the 29th proposition of Quesnell: «Outside the Church no grace is given.»

III. But the most holy Pius IX is to be heard, who in the Encyclical Letter to the Cardinals, Archbishops, and Bishops of Italy, given on 10 August 1863, has these words: «It is known to Us and to you that those who labor under invincible ignorance with regard to our most holy religion and who, zealously keeping the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God in the hearts of all and being ready to obey God, lead an honest and upright life, can, by the operating power of divine light and grace, attain eternal life: since God, who fully beholds, scrutinizes, and knows the minds, souls, thoughts, and habits of all, by His supreme goodness and clemency does not at all suffer anyone to be punished with eternal torments who does not have the guilt of voluntary fault.»

One may compare what we have given in the Parergon to Chapter II, p. 254, under nn. I. III. IV., which contribute very much to confirming and illustrating the present thesis.

IV. But the reason of the thesis is most simple. It depends, namely, on this, that the will of God that men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth is universal I. Tim. II. 1. seqq.; but infidels cannot actually come to faith unless they are prepared by grace; therefore God has also destined His graces for them and confers them as opportunity offers.

V. Yet the thesis is not to be dismissed without our freeing Augustine from the calumny inflicted on him by Jansenius with regard to the fourfold state of men which Augustine distinguished: before the law, under the law, under grace, in peace. For Jansenius, in De statu naturae lapsae L. III. c. 2. seqq., teaches that «the opinion of Augustine, which the Pelagians detested so greatly, is none other than this: that the free choice of the will, after the fall of the first man, before it is visited by grace, h. e. before it embraces the Christian faith, where grace begins, is so held captive under earthly lusts that that freedom of the will, bound as it were with iron chains, can in no way rise up to will or do the good, but is turned about in evil only with a captive motion.» Jansenius proves this also by this fourth argument «from the four states of the people of God before the law, under the law, under grace, and in peace. For in Augustine there is this difference among those states, that in the first two the free choice lies captive and enslaved under the concupiscence of sin, so that it cannot fulfill the law of justice set before it or the very good work which the law commands. For although in the second state man, already instructed by the law and terrified by the fear of punishment, is from time to time struck by certain desires of living well; yet because the free choice is not yet freed from sin, that is, from the concupiscence dominating his will or consent, it cannot resist its motions... In the other two states the free choice, freed by liberating grace, is free, and either fights or rests in the peace of beatitude. These states are distinguished by certain degrees in the whole human race, so that the first had its place in most men from the fall of Adam up to Moses, who gave the law, during which whole time the human race lived in the deepest ignorance. The second from Moses up to Christ, who gave the liberating grace; for that time was of a law removing ignorance indeed, but granting no grace for doing well, and much less granting freedom to the free choice from the tyranny of dominating lust. In the third state the grace of Christ frees the human race... In the fourth, most perfectly free, we triumph.» He adds further: «These states also have their place in individual men by a certain proportion. The first and the second, as long as man lies in the deep ignorance of the justice of the law to be done or, even if he already knows the precepts, yet destitute of true faith or of the liberating spirit of charity, lies under his own binding and conquering lusts... In the third state the free choice is drawn out and freed from the law of sin and death... In the fourth, by the blessed resurrection, it is freed from all evil.» Jansenius appeals to Enchir. c. 118, to Lib. qq. LXXXIII. q. 66, to Comm. in Epist. ad Galatas c. 5, to the Exposition of whichVI. Jansenius, in l. I. De Gratia Christi c. 2, discloses the mystery of this matter in these words: «According to the doctrine of Augustine, most firmly founded in Scripture... the most salutary counsel of God in reforming the Jewish people was in giving the law, not that through sufficient grace, which would be present to them, they might live rightly by observing it, which He foreknew they could not yet do; but that by the multitude of sins and the magnitude of the transgressions, which were known to be about to follow through the law which they could not fulfill, their pride might be broken... so that, the pride of the proud being convicted and humility conceived, at length they would acknowledge that they were sick and could not fulfill the law that had been given... which scope of God is so far from supposing that sufficient grace for observing the law was present to the Jews, that rather, on the contrary, it convinces that it was in no way present to them, but that God chose this way of crushing pride, so that by the knowledge and confession of their own weakness He might lead them to invoke and obtain the grace sufficient for observing the law.»

Likewise Jansenius, in De Gratia Christi l. III. c. 9, distinguishing the sons and heirs of the Old Testament, who, gaping after the earthly goods promised to them, seemed indeed to themselves to live well, but were sinners, from the Dispensers and Administrators of the Old Testament, who did not spurn its figurative precepts and promises, but understood, loved, and awaited the New in them as in certain prophetic signs; with this distinction, I say, established, he decides that whatever he had so far said about the Jews constituted under the old law is to be understood of the true and genuine heirs and sons of that Testament which was given on Mount Sinai and which begot unto servitude.

VII. But this opinion is wholly foreign to Augustine's mind, and so foreign that it is evidently refuted by his very authority.

Indeed 1) This very opinion, which Jansenius imputes to Augustine, the Pelagians used to object to him, as Augustine testifies in Cont. duas epistt. Pelagg. l. III. c. 2: «We, they say, do not say that the law of the Old Testament was given for this, that it might justify the obedient, but that it might become the cause of graver sin.» But what does Augustine say to these things? Does he concede that this is said by him? hear...

»They do not at all understand what we say about the law, because we say that which the Apostle says, whom they do not understand.« It is certain, therefore, that what the Pelagians, and with the Pelagians Jansenius, impute to him is not taught by Augustine. What then was Augustine saying? He compared the two earlier states, before the law and under the law, with the state under grace, viewed according to what they are in themselves, having regard to their own economy and sufficiency for salvation. For if the law, whether natural or written, is viewed in itself, it certainly does not suffice for salvation; for through it there is knowledge of what is to be done, but there is not the help necessary for the work; indeed, since through the law there is knowledge of sin, if this alone is present, it makes men not just, but rather transgressors. That this is Augustine's meaning is clear from what follows. For in the same place he says »But we say that by the law it comes about that God is heard as to what He wills to be done; but by grace, that the law is obeyed.« Where you have the distinction between law and grace drawn from the proper effect of each. And c. 4: »What Catholic would say what they boast that we say: that the Holy Spirit, the helper of virtue, was not in the Old Testament, unless we understand the old Testament in the way the Apostle said: from Mount Sinai begetting unto truth?« That is, insofar as it was the testament of servants, bearing a law that terrifies and punishes, it did not help; only under this aspect can it be said to have lacked grace; moreover, this is to consider the law only according to what is proper to it. Again c. 7. n. 20: »More plainly and briefly it can be said thus: the justice of the law is not fulfilled when the law commands and man does it as it were by his own powers; but when the Spirit helps and the free will of man, freed by the grace of God, does it.« That is, the will under the law is a will instructed indeed with the knowledge of what God commands; but left to its own natural powers it does not suffice for the observance of the law, but a helping Spirit is required. And in truth 2) that Augustine's doctrine is to be so understood is shown most evidently by this, that Augustine most certainly and most frequently taught that the grace of God was at hand for the men of the Old Testament, not only the greater ones but also the people indiscriminately, and that there were just men among them. Indeed, in Psalm. LXVII n. 2: »There were also in that people those who understood, having the faith which was afterwards revealed, pertaining not to the letter of the law, but to the grace of the Spirit. For not without this faith were those who could foresee and foretell its future revelation in Christ, since even those old Sacraments were significant of future things. Did only the prophets have this faith? did not the people also?

But even those who faithfully heard the prophets were helped by the same grace, so that they understood what they heard. But certainly the Sacrament of the kingdom of heaven was veiled in the Old Testament, which was to be revealed in the New in the fullness of time.» Cf. also his letter to Hilarius of Sicily 157. n. 14. 15.

VIII. Wherefore Augustine 3) In the Letter which he wrote with four other Bishops to Innocent, he says n. 14: «Through the law is knowledge of sin. But now without the law the justice of God is manifest, attested by the law and the prophets. When the Apostle says: it is manifested, he shows that it existed even then (the justice of God, which according to Augustine is that by which God makes us just; read among other things chapter 7. n. 20. of Book III against the two Letters of the Pelagians and Serm. LXXXII. c. 9.), but like that rain which Gideon obtained, then hidden as it were in the fleece, now manifest as it were on the threshing floor.... Just as many flee from the face of reigning sin to grace, as now lying open on the threshing floor, so few (just Jews, few compared with the just of the Church, which embraces the whole world) fled to it as then lying hidden in the fleece.» places between the Old and the New Testament not this distinction, that grace was then lacking and now is; but that it was then hidden, now manifest.

Namely, the economy of the Jewish people was in itself an economy of the law, which was manifest; grace, however, was conferred on the same people, but not by the force of the law or by the force of that economy, but by the force of the economy of the Gospel, which indeed was then veiled and hidden, but now, after Christ, is revealed and manifest. Whence in the Old Testament the law is said to have been manifest, grace hidden.

IX. Moreover, in order that Augustine's doctrine may be understood more intimately, one must note the distinction placed by him between these two phrases: to be under the law and to be in the law or with the law. In Ioann. Tract. III., n. 2: «Whence had men been made to be under the law? by not fulfilling the law. For he who fulfills the law is not under the law, but with the law.» Ibid. Tract. LI. n. 27: «All who are guilty are under the law; those living well are with the law.» In Psalm. I. n. 2: «It is one thing to be in the law, another to be under the law. He who is in the law acts according to the law; he who is under the law is acted upon according to the law. The former, therefore, is free; the latter is a slave.» Therefore to be under the law is not merely to have the law, but not to keep the law one has and thereby to be made guilty and condemned: a slave, therefore, is he who is under the law; for he does not work from love of justice, on account of which he would be free under grace and in the law and with the law, and on that account he is subject to the threats, terrors, and vengeance of the law. Wherefore Augustine affirms of any man, whether Jew or Christian, that he is under the law if he does not fulfill it; for the law is not placed for the just, but for the unjust, and he affirms that he is in the law if he fulfills it. But if a comparison is made of the people of the Old Testament and the people of the New Testament, and the economy of each is viewed according to what is proper to it, it is clear that «in the old law fear prevailed, in the new love,» as he says in Psalm. LXXVII. n. 7, and that the men of the Old Testament, having regard to the economy of the law alone, could not observe the law, but the men of the New Testament can; for grace is proper to this state, as such. Moreover, if the «law is more commonly so called when it threatens, terrifies, avenges» (Ad Simplic. L. I. q. I. n. 17) and if he is under the law who does not fulfill it, he also will be under the law who cannot fulfill it and therefore must fear its vengeance; wherefore the men of the Old Testament, since, having regard to the law alone, which alone pertained to them, they could not fulfill the law, were under the law. But just as the Christian, who by reason of the economy in which he lives is under grace, if nevertheless he does not keep the law and sins, he himself is under the law and therefore, as Augustine says, looks to the Old Testament begetting unto servitude; so also the Jew, who by reason of the economy in which he lived was under the law, if nevertheless he had kept the law through the grace which was not lacking to him through the merits of Christ, who was working even then, he himself would have been in the law and under grace and would have looked to the New Testament. Contr. duas epistt. Pelagg. I. III. c. 4. n. 9: «To the Old Testament, which is from Mount Sinai begetting unto servitude, which is Agar, those belong who, when they have received the holy and just and good law, think that the letter can suffice for them for life, and therefore, that they may become doers of the law, do not seek divine mercy.» This doctrine of Augustine concerning men under the law is the same as that concerning men who were before the law. For, viewed according to the reason of their state, they lacked also the positive law given from without; yet they did not lack, on account of the merits of Christ to be revealed in the state of grace, the knowledge and grace necessary for acting. Are we to think that Augustine judged that all the Patriarchs, Seth, Noe, Abraham, Isaac, etc., were destitute of the grace of God and did nothing but sins? What is more manifest against Scripture? Certainly he affirms in Enchir. c. 118 that grace was conferred on them no less than on those who were under the old law: «So also the people of God has been ordered through the intervals of times, as it pleased God. For it was first before the law, secondly under the law... then under grace... Which grace indeed was not lacking before to those to whom it behooved to be imparted, although according to the dispensation of the time, veiled and hidden.»

When, therefore, the singular state of a man who first lived in the deepest darkness of ignorance, then comes to know sin through the law, and at length, helped by the grace of God, works rightly, is compared with these states of the human race only according to what these states had proper to themselves, it does not follow that the human race existing in the earlier states lacked the helps necessary for acting salutarily, nor that there were no just men. Faure in 1. c. Enchirid.