ARTICLE III.

WHETHER GRACE IS PROPERLY DIVIDED

INTO PREVENIENT AND SUBSEQUENT GRACE

 State of the question. This article is intended to explain the classical division of grace, according to Augustine, De natura et gratia, chap.  31, and ad Bonifacium, Bk. 11, chap. 9, as here cited at the end of the article. These terms should be carefully defined that it may be clear wherein lay the error of the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, who de-nied the necessity of prevenient grace. According to them, generally, every internal grace was subsequent with respect to free will; only external preaching of the word was antecedent, according as the beginning of salvation came from us and not from God. Thus did they interpret the words of Apoc. 3:20: “I stand at the gate, and knock. If any man shall hear My voice, and open to Me the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.”

We shall presently see that grace can never be thus termed “subsequent” with respect to free will, but only in the sense that it follows another grace or another effect of grace; cf. below, Ia IIae, q. 112, a. 2: “Whatever preparation (for grace) may be present in man is derived from the help of God moving the soul to good”; and in IV Sent., d. 17, q. I, a. I, solut. 2 ad 2: “Our will is entirely attendant upon divine grace and in no way before hand.”

Conclusion. Grace, habitual as well as actual, is properly divided into prevenient and subsequent.

Scriptural proof, in the argument Sed contra; namely, that the grace of God proceeds from His mercy. But it is said (Ps. 58:11): “His mercy shall prevent me,” and again (Ps. 22:6): “Thy mercy will follow me.” Therefore.

Likewise in the prayers of the Church; the collect Pretiosa: “Anticipate, O Lord, we beseech thee, our actions by Thy inspiration, and continue them by Thine assistance; that every one of our works may begin always from Thee, and through Thee be ended.” The collect for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost: “O Lord, we pray Thee that Thy grace may always go before and follow us.” And the collect of Easter Sunday: “Grant that the vows Thou inspirest us to perform, Thou wouldst thyself help us to fulfill.”

Similarly on the authority of St. Augustine, here cited in the body of the article, from De natura et gratia, chap. 31: “(God) precedes us that we may be healed; He follows us that, even healed, we may yet be invigorated. He precedes us that we may be called; He follows us that we may be glorified. He precedes us that we may live piously;

He follows us that we may live with Him forever, since without Him we can do nothing.”

Theological proof.

Grace is properly classified according to its various effects. 

But there are five effects appointed to grace: 1. that the soul may be healed; 2. that it may will the good; 3. that it may eficaciously perform the good it wills; 4. that it may persevere in the good; 5. that it may attain to glory.

Therefore the grace causing the first effect is properly termed “prevenient” with respect to the second effect, and as causing the second it is called “subsequent” in relation to the first effect; and so with the rest. Thus the same act is at once prevenient and subsequent with respect to different effects.

Corollary. Thus grace is called prevenient with respect to some following act, although it is also prevenient with respect to the act toward which it moves immediately, according as it is previous to it with the priority of causality. And grace is not said to be subsequent in relation to free will, as Pelagius held, but relative to another grace or effect of grace.

As St. Thomas remarks (De veritate, q. 27, a. 5 ad 6): “Prevenient and subsequent grace may be understood in another way with respect to the man whom it moves; thus prevenient grace causes a man to will what is good, and subsequent grace causes him to perform the good which he has willed.” As Augustine declares in the Enchiridion, chap. 32: “He precedes the unwilling, that he may will, and follows the willing lest he will in vain.”

Reply to first objection. Since the uncreated love of God for us is eternal, it is always prevenient. (Cf. Del Prado, op. cit., I, 247.)

Corollary 2. Both operative and cooperative grace, since they move toward diverse acts, may be called prevenient and subsequent. 

Doubt. Whether prevenient and subsequent grace may be the same grace numerically. The solution is found in the reply to the second objection, that is, in the case of habitual grace, yes; but in that of actual grace, no, for the same reason as for operative and cooperative grace.  For it is evident that the same habitual grace, numerically, is called prevenient inasmuch as, justifying us, it precedes meritorious works; it is called subsequent inasmuch as it will be consummated, thus it is called glory.”

In fact, St. Thomas expressly states here in the reply to the second objection: “Subsequent grace pertaining to glory is not different numerically from prevenient grace by which we are justified now; for as the charity of the wayfarer is not made void but perfected in heaven, so also can this be said of the light of grace, for neither of them bears any imperfection in its principle.”

But if it is a question of actual grace, which ceases with the very act toward which it moves immediately and of which it is the beginning, then it is multiplied along with the acts enumerated above, as we said before of operative actual grace and cooperative actual grace. 

To complete this Question III on the division of grace, two articles must be added since the Council of Trent and the condemnation of Jansenism: 1. The distinction between exciting or stimulating grace and assisting grace, which was considered by the Council, Sess. VI, chap. 5; 2. The difference between sufficient and efficacious grace, in respect to which the Protestants and Jansenists erred.   

THE DIVISION OF ACTUAL GRACE INTO STIMULATING AND ASSISTING GRACE (CF. DEL PRADO, OP. CIT., I, 243)

This division is explained at the Council of Trent, Sess. VI, chap. 5 (Denz., no. 797): “It is declared, moreover, that the beginning of this very justification in adults is received from God through Christ Jesus by prevenient grace (can. 3), that is, by His vocation, in that none are called on account of their own existing merits; that they who were turned away from God by sin, may be disposed by His stimulating and assisting grace to become converted to their own justification, freely (can. 4 and 5) assenting to and cooperating with the same grace.”

According to this text, grace rousing one from the sleep of sin by moral movement, that is, by enlightenment and attraction, and grace assisting one to will the good, by the application of the will to its exercise, are included under prevenient grace, which precedes the free consent of man’s will, whereby we consent to justification and may be prepared for it. Hence this prevenient grace to which the Council refers is the same as the operative grace considered by St. Thomas in article two, especially in the reply to the second objection: “God does not justify us without ourselves, since by the movement of free will, when we are justified, we consent to the justice of God. However, this movement is not the cause of grace [as the Semi-Pelagians held], but its effect; hence the whole operation belongs to grace.” (Cf. Del Prado, De gratia, I, 228.)

Thus is corroborated our interpretation of article two, that is: operative grace is not only stimulating but assisting. Under Sess. VI, chap. 5 of the Council the same doctrine is explained as in article two of the present question (III). The Council of Trent, Sess. VI, can. 4 (Denz., no. 814) uses the term “moving grace” for assisting grace. Doubt. Whether the prevenient grace which stimulates the intellect and assists in the application of the will is absolutely prior to our consent, or subsequent to it. How are we to understand the following text of the Apocalypse (3:20)? “Behold, I stand at the gate and knock. If any man shall hear My voice, and open to Me the door, I will come in to him.”

Reply. This grace is, with respect to its efficient cause, absolutely prior to our consent, according to St. Thomas (Ia IIae, q. III, a. 2 ad 2; q. 113, a. 8 c.). At the same instant: 1. there is an infusion of grace; 2. a movement of the free will with respect to God; 3. a movement of the free will in regard to sin; 4. the remission of sin. Similarly in the answers to the first and second objections. (Cf. Dominic Soto, De natura et gratia, Bk. I, chap. 16, and Del Prado, De gratia, I, 245.)

Corollary. Del Prado, op. cit. (I, 248): From the notion of operative and cooperative grace, propounded by St. Thomas in article two, it can easily be demonstrated that the gratuitous movement of God, whereby He impels us to meritorious good, is efficacious, not on account of the consent of the free will that has been moved, but on account of the will and intention of God who moves it, as St. Thomas expressly declares in the following question (112, a. 3). 

Even in article two of the present question, the Angelic Doctor has already said with reference to operative grace, that “with it, our mens is moved and not the mover”; and, in the answer to the second objection, that the movement of the free will, when we are justified and consent to the justice of God, “is not the cause of grace, but its effect, so that the whole operation belongs to grace.”

Again in the body of this second article it is declared of cooperative grace: “And since God also helps us in this (deliberate) act, both by interiorly strengthening the will that it may accomplish the act, and by exteriorly supplying the faculty to perform it, with respect to this kind of act it is called cooperative grace.”

As a matter of fact, Molina would not have denied the interpretation of Augustine given by St. Thomas, were it not declared in this interpretation that grace is efficacious of itself.

1 Cf. I Cor. 12:7 2 We have treated this question at length elsewhere: Christian Perfection and Contemplation; The Three Ages of the Interior Life. 3 In fact, without charity our will is turned away from God as final end. Hence we read in I John 3:14: “We have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death.” 4 De auxiliis divinae gratiae, Bk. III, chap. 5, no. 4; cf. Del Prado, De gratia et libero arbitrio, I, 228. 5 Cf. Suarez, De auxiliis divinae gratiae, BK. III chap. 5, no. 4. 6 This is contrary to the answer ad 3 of the present article: “By operative grace man is aided by God to will what is good.” 7 De gratia et libero arbitrio, chap. 17. 8 Operative and cooperative grace, according to St. Thomas; cf. Ia IIae, q. III, a.2, o., 4; a.3, c; II Sent., dist. 26, a. 5, o., 4; De veritate, q. 27, a. 5, I, 2; II Cor., 6, lect. I (at the beginning); IIIa, q. 86, a. 4, 2; a. 6 ad I; q.  88, a. I, 4. 9 St. Thomas had also said, Ia IIae, q.55, a.4 ad 6: “Infused virtue is caused in us by God, without our action, not however without our consent”; and further, Ia IIae, q.113, a.3: “By infusing grace God at once moves the free will to accept the gift of grace, in those who are capable of this movement.” As Del Prado rightly observes, op. cit., I, 213: The will cannot strictly move itself to this first act of charity, for as a supernatural conclusion is not contained in a natural principle, neither is a supernatural choice contained in man’s primary natural intention. In fact, before the gift of justifying grace, the will of man is turned away from God on account of mortal sin. Hence it is God who must begin to move the free will of man determinately by grace toward the initial volition of supernatural good, as stated in the famous reply to the third objection, Ia IIae, 9.9, a.6. Similarly, Soto, De nat. et gratia, chap. 16. This is the true interpretation of St. Thomas given by Cajetan, Soto, Lemos, etc.; also by the Salmanticenses, disp. V, dub. VII, no. 165.  

Grace: Commentary on the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas, Chapter Five Rev. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH

The question of sufficient grace and efficacious grace is here treated in four chapters according to the following summary.  

CHAPTER V. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS AND THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH

I. Preliminary remarks: statement and difficulty of the question.

II. Doctrine of the Church on sufficient grace.

III. How did St. Augustine and St. Thomas understand this doctrine of the Church on sufficient grace?

IV. Doctrine of the Church on efficacious grace. 

CHAPTER VI. SUFFICIENT GRACE

I. Various systems of Catholic theologians with regard to Sufficient and efficacious grace. 

II. To what extent sufficient grace is to be admitted and how it is divided.

III. Refutation of the objections against the Thomistic doctrine of sufficient grace.

IV. What is to be thought of the opinion of J. Gonzales de Albeda, O.P.

V. The opinion of St. Alphonsus Liguori.

CHAPTER VII. EFFICACIOUS GRACE

Conclusion I. Its efficacy cannot be attacked from without. Corollary with respect to spirituality. 

Conclusion II. Its internal efficacy is not sufficiently explained by moral motion.

Conclusion III. Its internal efficacy is properly and formally a pre determining physical premotion.

IV. Refutation of objections. 

CHAPTER VIII. EXCURSUS ON EFFICACIOUS GRACE

I. Efficacious grace and easy acts conducive to salvation.

II. Efficacious grace in relation to spirituality.

III. Efficacious grace in holy wayfarers, particularly in martyrs.

IV. Efficacious grace in those burning with intense love of God.

V.  Efficacious grace in the impeccable and freely obedient Christ.