Grace, in theological terms, signifies a gift that God confers on men, through His absolute generosity, without their having done anything to merit it, whether such gift concerns this life or the next.

With the above as a starting point, theologians first make a distinction between graces in the natural order and salvific graces ; the first contain the gifts of creation, of being, of conservation, of life, of intelligence, and all the advantages of the soul and of the body; this inspired St. Augustine to say in Letter 177 to Innocent : Quadam, non improbanda ratione dicitur gratia Dei qua creati sumus homines . . . qui et essemus, et viveremus, et sentiremus, et intelligeremus . [1] It is also through God's grace that angels and the souls of men are immortal and that man has free will, etc.

Salvific graces are those that, by their nature, are related to and lead to eternal life; and when theologians consider the question of grace , it is principally this kind that they examine.

They define salvific grace in general as a supernatural gift that God awards gratuitously to thinking beings, with regard to their salvation; this definition is appropriate to all supernatural grace , as much for that conferred by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ as for that, according to St. Thomas and several other Scholastics, awarded to angels at the time of their creation and to the first man in his state of innocence.

But when they consider the question of the grace of Jesus Christ or the Savior, theologians define it as a supernatural gift that God awards gratuitously to thinking creatures in consideration of the passion and the merits of Jesus Christ and with regard to eternal life.

One can see in this definition:

1. that the word gift is an extremely vague term to which one attaches no clear idea;

2. that theologians are not in agreement regarding the explanation of this word supernatural which is used in their definition.

Some theologians claim that it is that which surpasses the active forces of nature.

Others mean by supernatural that which is beyond the active and passive forces of nature.

The latter mean by supernatural that which surpasses the physical as well as the intentional powers of existing substances and of their connatural accidents.

For the former, supernaturality consists in a certain relationship to God as author of grace and of glory.

For others, finally, it [supernaturality] consists in an excellence that surpasses the powers and the desires of created nature and of nature yet to be created; for these same theologians it consists as well in a union with God that is either real and physical, like the hypostatic union, or in an intentional union that it is either immediate or mediate.

One may choose among these different views the one that seems most clear, for they are all very theological.

This grace is divided into an infinity of types. For example:

1. Uncreated and created grace : the first is the love that God has for creatures and the will He has to make them eternally happy; this designation is completely inappropriate; the second kind consists of the means and the blessings that God confers on creatures in order for them to reach this end. St. Thomas, III, q. ii, art. 10 . Estius, Sylvius, Bellarm. etc .

2. The grace of God and the grace of Christ : the first is that which is conferred without consideration of the merits of Jesus Christ and which is also called healing grace; it is the grace of the angels and of Adam before their fall; the second is that which is conferred in consideration of the merits of the Redeemer; it is also called medicinal grace ; it is present in man's current state. St. Thomas, Cajétan, etc .

3. Exterior and interior grace : the first is the kind that moves man via external means, such as law, doctrine, the preaching of the Gospel; the Pelagians recognized only this kind of grace ; the second is the kind that touches man inside via good thoughts, holy desires, pious resolutions, etc.

4. Grace freely given and grace that makes one pleasing to God or, in the words of theologians, gratia gratis data and gratia gratum faciens : by gratia gratis data , theologians mean a supernatural gift that God confers on someone for the salvation and sanctification of others, although in virtue of this gift a man does not always effect his own salvation and sanctification; examples of this are the gift of tongues, the gift of miracles, the gift of prophecy, etc . By gratia gratum faciens , they mean a supernatural gift that was destined originally and by its nature for the sanctification and the salvation of the person who receives it and who is thereby made pleasing in the eyes of God.

5. The grace just described is divided into habitual grace and actual grace . Habitual grace is the kind that resides in the soul in the manner of an inherent quality, fixed and permanent, unless mortal sin chases it away; it is subdivided into sanctifying or justifying grace , infused virtues, and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Sanctifying or justifying grace is that by which man becomes formally righteous, that is to say, by which he receives justice as a form; this expression is borrowed from the philosophy of Aristotle.

Actual grace is that which is awarded via an act or momentary motion in order to accomplish a particular good work, such as resisting a given temptation or accomplishing various precepts.

In all of the disputes that divide theologians concerning the doctrine of grace , the question of actual grace is the main issue.

6. Actual grace is divided into grace of the intellect and grace of the will.

Grace of the intellect is an interior illumination of the mind; grace of the will is an indeliberate and immediate movement that God produces in the will. Actual grace , at least since Adam's sin, affects these two faculties because of the darkness that has obscured the intellect and because of the weakness in the will resulting from the first man's sin. [Therefore] the intellect needs to be illumined and the will requires help from above in order for it to embrace the good.

This distinction, as we see, presupposes the distinction between the intellect and the will and seems, in some respects, precarious and nominal.

7. Actual grace , in so much as it encompasses these two qualities, is divided into operating and cooperating grace , prevenient and subsequent [grace], existing [2] and helping [grace]; these are terms that theologians explain in different ways according to the various doctrines they embrace regarding grace . One can say that operating grace , prevenient [grace] and existing [grace] are essentially the same thing; one can define them as a sudden illumination of the mind and an indeliberate movement of the will that God operates in us without us so that we want and that we perform the supernatural good; similarly, cooperating grace , subsequent [grace], and assisting [grace] are essentially the same thing and are defined as a supernatural aid by which God acts with us in order to produce each and every free and supernatural salvific act.

8. Operating or existing grace  [2] is divided into efficacious grace and sufficient grace . Efficacious grace is that which produces the will's consent, certainly and infallibly, and which the will never resists even though it has an immediate and real power to do so. Sufficient grace is that which gives adequate strength to the will to do the good but which the will does not always use.

Given that grace and its operation, its necessity, and its compatibility with human freedom are incomprehensible mysteries for our feeble reason, it is not surprising that there have been conflicting opinions on all of these questions. The most notable of these are those held by the Pelagians, the Semi-Pelagians, the Arminians, the Molinists, the Congruists, etc ., on the one hand, and those held by the Predestinarians, the followers of Wickliffe, the Lutherans, the hard-line Calvinists or Gomarists, by Baius, Jansen, the Augustinians, and the Thomists, etc ., on the other hand. See these articles .

The quarrel between the defenders of these different opinions concerns principally the question of the necessity and the efficacy of grace .

The Pelagians and the Semi-Pelagians are in opposition to everyone else regarding this question. The former refuse to recognize any kind of interior grace , and the latter deny the necessity of grace as the starting point of faith and of good works. According to the theologians who have written since Innocent X's Bull against Jansen's book, St. Augustine quarreled with these heretics only to oblige them to recognize this necessity that they denied. While acknowledging that such is St. Augustine's primary objective, one must recognize: (1) that along the way he also forcefully teaches the efficacy of grace ; (2) that the Semi-Pelagians, no doubt, while denying the necessity of grace for the beginning of good works and of faith, continued to believe that that [grace] which they endorsed was versatile; and (3) that St. Augustine combats this opinion.

Catholic doctrine teaches that interior grace precedes the will and consequently is necessary for the beginning of faith and of good works; this doctrine also teaches that without it man can do nothing to obtain salvation .

Apart from the Pelagians and the Semi-Pelagians, the defenders of the other opinions are primarily divided on the question of the efficacy of grace .

Catholic doctrine regarding this matter is:

1. that there is such a thing as efficacious grace via which God causes the heart's resistance to be overcome; this happens without any prejudice to human freedom;

2. that there is such a thing as sufficient grace , which man does sometimes resist.

But there is a vigorous debate regarding the origin of the efficacy of grace ; does such efficacy come from the will's consent or, rather, is it [grace] inherently efficacious?

The multitude of opinions that divide theologians necessarily come down to these two views. The principal doctrines regarding this matter are those of the Thomists, the Augustinians, the Congruists, the Molinists, and of Father Thomassin.

The Thomists claim that the efficacy of grace is to be found in God's omnipotence and in the sovereign authority that He has over the will of men; they define it [grace that is efficacious] as a grace that by its nature precedes the will's free consent and that produces this consent, by physically applying the will to the act, without hampering or destroying the will's freedom. According to them, it is absolutely necessary for human action, regardless of the state in which we consider man, whether it be the state of dependence before Adam's sin or the state of dependence and weakness that followed Adam's sin, a weakness that the human will contracted via that sin. The Thomists also call it [grace] physical premotion . See Premotion.

Augustinians claim that the efficacy of grace has its source in the force of a victorious delectation which is absolute and which by its very nature wins the will's consent; according to them, efficacious grace is that which physically precedes the will but which produces its consent only through a moral premotion. They are divided regarding its necessity; some Augustinians maintain that grace that is efficacious in and of itself is necessary for every supernatural and meritorious act; other Augustinians, like Cardinal Norris, make a distinction between difficult and easy works and require for the first kind alone a grace that is inherently efficacious while the others require sufficient grace . See Sufficient and Augustinians.

The Congruists believe that the efficacy of grace comes from the advantageous combination of all of the circumstances in which it is accorded. God, according to this doctrine, foresees when, where, and in what circumstances the will is inclined to consent to or to withhold consent to grace ; through His absolute goodness, God confers it at the opportune moment: according to the Congruists, efficacious grace and sufficient grace are not essentially different one from the other; the only difference is that efficacious grace is a greater benefit, considering the circumstances, than sufficient grace ; it is somewhat similar to the gift of a sword; this gift is still a gift whether in peacetime or in war. However, given that a sword is more useful in war than in peacetime, the gift of it is more precious in the one circumstance than in the other. See Congruism.

The Molinists think that the efficacy of grace comes from the will's consent; they think that God, in giving the same grace to all without distinction, leaves to the human will the decision to render it efficacious or inefficacious according to whether the will gives or withholds its consent; thus it is, strictly speaking, that the Molinists do not recognize any grace that is inherently efficacious or what other theologians call gratia per se and ab intrinseco efficax .

According to Father Thomassin ( Dogmatum Theologicorum, vol. III, tract iv, chapt. xviii .), the efficacy of grace consists in a collection of several supernatural aids, interior as well as exterior, which apply so much pressure on the will that they infallibly obtain its consent; this happens, however, in such a manner that when they act separately they can be deprived of their effect and indeed are often deprived by the will's resistance. But considered collectively, they attack the will with such force that they remain victorious, predetermining it not physically, but morally.

The errors regarding efficacious grace that have been condemned by the Church are those of Luther, of Calvin, and of Jansen. Luther held that grace acts with such authority on the human will that it does not even retain the power to resist. Calvin, in his Instituts III, chap. xxiii, devotes himself to proving that the will of God produces an inevitable necessity in all things, including even our human will. According to Luther and Calvin, this necessity is not at all physical, absolute, immutable, and essential but is, rather, relative, variable, and ephemeral. Calvin, Instituts, bk. III, chap. ii, n. 11 and 12 ; Luther, De Servio Arbitrio, fol. 434 . The Arminians and several Lutheran branches have softened this harshness in their masters' doctrine. See Arminians, Lutherans.

The Arminians maintain, just as Catholics do, the necessity of efficacious grace , in the sense that this grace is never lacking to the righteous except through their own fault and that the righteous possess, when in need, interior grace that is truly and exactly sufficient for attracting efficacious grace and that when it [interior grace] is not rejected it does infallibly attract [efficacious grace]; but, it [interior grace] often remains, on the contrary, without effect because instead of consenting to it, as one might, humans resist it.

Jansen and his disciples believe that the efficacy of grace is the result of the influence of an indeliberate celestial delight whose power is superior to the force of the concupiscence that is opposed to it. See Jansenism.

All of these opinions come down to, as we said above, two diametrically opposed doctrines, one of which favors free will and the other the power of God; in each of these two camps opinions are often separated only by slight and nearly imperceptible nuances. The Semi-Pelagians acknowledged, at least regarding good works, a versatile grace which God granted after having consulted the will and foreseen its consent. It would be difficult to assign any difference on this matter between them and the Molinists and Congruists: it is true that they claimed, according to theologians, that this foreseen consent was for God a determining motive, a reason for granting it [grace]; but the Thomists and the other Catholic theologians who are partisans of grace that is efficacious by its very nature consistently reproach the Congruists and the Molinists that the above mentioned position is a necessary consequence of their [own] views.

The Molinists and the Congruists, vis-à-vis each other, hold views that are compatible. Molina never denied the congruity of grace , and Suarès, in saying that efficacy is a product of circumstances, cannot deny that the will's consent or disagreement renders grace , in the end, efficacious or inefficacious: this is Tourneli's remark, De Gratia Christi , vol. II, p. 674 .

Father Thomassin's position can still be found in Molinism and in Congruism, for the moral motion that results from the multitude of graces , whatever the force with which it incites the will, is always distinguished from consent and does not physically produce consent: it is thus always this very consent that renders grace efficacious.

Moreover, all the opinions that ascribe to grace an efficacy independent of consent resemble each other; the terms used matter not: whether one calls grace a delectation , a premotion , etc. will not change the essential question which is to know if the will's consent under the influence of grace is free or necessary.

The Church concerns itself little with abstract opinions regarding the nature of grace ; however, attentive to the preservation of the dogma of human freedom, without which there is neither religion nor morality, it condemns interpretations that would undermine that freedom. It is difficult to believe that any theologian, including Luther and Calvin, has made of man a being absolutely destitute of all power to act, incapable of merit or fault, the plaything of God's power, becoming at the will of the Supreme Being a vessel of honor or of ignominy, one of the elect or one of the reprobate: but, the manner of speaking of such theologians, abusive and contrary to accepted language, was condemnable, and it is exactly this that the Church has condemned.

One will find in the specific articles devoted to Molinism, Congruism, Thomism, etc. details that we are omitting here.

Moreover, so much has been written on this matter without anything being clarified that we would fear expending ourselves just as futilely as others: one can read on these matters the principal works of the theologians of the different parties; the discussions that they have undertaken, very often meticulous and futile, do not deserve a place in a philosophical work, however encyclopedic it may be.

St. Augustine has been called the doctor of grace because of the works that he composed on this subject: it appears, in fact, that we are indebted to him for the considerable light that he has shone on this important topic: for he himself affirms that God had revealed to him the doctrine that he develops. Dixi hoc apostolico praecipue testimonio etiam me ipsum fuisse convictum, cum in hac quaestione solvenda (how faith comes from God) cum ad episcopum Simplicianum scriberem, revelavit . [3] St. Augustine , De Praedestinatione Sanctorum, chap. iv . [4]

Notes

1. [ By a certain unobjectionable rationale, it is said that we humans have been created by the grace of God...and [that] it is by this same grace that we exist, live, feel, and understand. My thanks go to Brenda Fineberg, Knox College, who translated both of the passages from St. Augustine that appear in this article. Her translations are used here with permission.]

2. [It seems to me that there is a lapsus here; the author refers to "grâce existante " as a subdivision of "grâce actuelle." My attempts to confirm the existence of this term were unsucessful. Although this term appears three times in the text, it seems plausible that the author actually means "grâce excitante / exciting grâce."]

3. [ While I was writing to Bishop Simpliciamus, I said that even I myself had been convinced especially by this apostolic testimony, when, in the matter of this question that needed to be resolved (how faith comes from God), [He] revealed [to me].]

4. [I wish to thank Jerry Miner, Knox College, and Laurence Devillairs, Institut Catholique de Paris, for their pertinent suggestions regarding style and interpretation.]