ARTICLE II.

WHETHER AN INFUSION OF GRACE IS NECESSARY FOR THE REMISSION OF GUILT, WHICH IS THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE WICKED

State of the question. In the second objection St. Thomas had already formulated the Protestant opinion according to which justification does not require an infusion of grace. The Protestants declared that man was rendered just, not by an intrinsically justifying form, but either by the justice whereby God is just or by the justice of Christ imputed extrinsically. Therefore the justification of the wicked would be an extrinsic denomination.

The reply of St. Thomas is: “The remission of guilt is inconceivable without an infusion of grace.” This reply contains two elements: 1. the remission of guilt is in fact produced by an infusion of grace, and 2. it cannot be effected otherwise, even by the absolute power of God.

The first of these is of faith; the second is opposed to Scotus, the Scotists, and Saurez.

Definition of faith by the Council of Trent (Sess. VI, can. 10 and 11; Denz., nos. 820, 821):

“If anyone should say that men are just without the justice of Christ whereby He merited our justification or by that justice itself formally, let him be anathema.” “If anyone should say that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the remission of sins alone, excluding grace and charity which is poured forth into their hearts by the Holy Ghost and abides in them, or even that the grace whereby we are justified is only a favor from God, let him be anathema. 

This article of the Church’s faith is clearly based on Sacred Scripture: “Of his fullness we all have received, and grace for grace” (John 1:16); “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us” (Rom. 5:5); “To every one of us is given grace, according to the measure of the giving of Christ” (Eph. 4:7).

Theological proof. St. Thomas shows the very impossibility of the remission of sin without the infusion of grace, thus admirably founding his argument on God’s love for us.

The remission of sin is effected according as God is pacified in our regard, loving us with special benevolence. But God cannot love the sinner with a special love except by infusing grace whereby the sinner is intrinsically transformed and made pleasing to God. Therefore the remission of sin cannot be effected without an infusion of grace. 

The major is self-evident, for God cannot remit the offense of the sinner unless He makes peace with him, and God makes peace with us inasmuch as He loves us with a special love. Thus nothing else can be designated wherein our peace with God consists; in other words, God makes peace with us in the matter of our offense on account of His special benevolence toward us.

The minor is based on St. Thomas’ principle enunciated in Ia IIae, q. 110, a. I, and Ia, q. 20, a. 2, to the effect that “the love of God does not presuppose goodness in us but produces it”; “the love of God infuses and creates goodness in things,” since He is the author of all good. Nor are we here concerned with the general love whereby God loves and preserves the very nature of the sinner while he is in the state of sin, but rather with the special love whereby He remits or pardons the offense. This special love cannot but produce some effect in us, that is, it cannot help but make man pleasing; otherwise God’s created love for us would be no more effective than the love of our friends, who cannot change the interior state of our souls. Now habitual grace excludes mortal sin absolutely, which is precisely the privation of the life of grace, or the death of the soul. (Cf. ad I.)

Reply to second objection. “God’s not imputing sin to man” proceeds “from the divine love for US,” and this divine love “produces an effect in us.”

Reply to third objection. The cessation of actual sin does not suffice for the remission of sin, since, as has already been said, habitual sin and the liability to punishment remain.

Objection of Scotus. God can be pacified by a negative love by which He wills only not to be offended any more, just as may be done among men.

Reply. Cf. IIIa, q. 85, a. 2. The case is not parallel, for man can pardon the offense of another through a change in himself, without any change in the offender; God, however, is changeless but works a change in others. Hence the transformation is here confined to man, who at first was not pleasing to God and was then made pleasing through the effect of God’s love for him.

A second theological proof may be adduced, as many theologians propose, on the basis of created grace itself.

A privation can only be removed by the opposite form, blindness, for instance, only by sight, darkness by light. But habitual sin con-sists essentially in the privation of sanctifying grace. Therefore, habitual sin can be removed only by the form of sanctifying grace. 

Objection. The major is true of physical privation, but not of moral privation, which is the absence of a form the subject ought to have, not by the nature of things, but by divine ordination. This moral privation can be removed, not only by the introduction of the op-posite form, but precisely by the fact that God’s ordination is changed, determining that this form is no longer due to this subject. God would thus act if He were to withdraw man’s ordination toward a supernatural end.

Reply. Although God can withdraw man’s ordination toward a supernatural end, He cannot bring it about that at the time when man sinned he was not ordained to a supernatural end, for power does not extend to the past. Moreover, the voluntary privation of grace does not cease to exist in the sinner except by a retractation of his previous will. 

A third theological proof on the part of man. Man does not cease to be turned away from God unless he is converted to Him by an interior transformation. But habitual mortal sin implies a habitual aversion to God. Therefore habitual mortal sin does not cease unless man is converted to God by an interior transformation. 

Corollary. It follows from this that, even by absolute power, mortal sin whether actual or habitual cannot coexist with habitual grace in the same subject. This is commonly held by theologians against the Nominalists, Scotus, and Suarez. The reason is that man would be at one and the same time actually, or at least habitually, turned away from God, his last end, and habitually converted to God. For the primary formal effect of sanctifying grace is to sanctify man, to justify or “rectify” him (that is, to confer rectitude with regard to God, his last end), and thereby to make man a child of God. Whereas on the other hand, mortal sin is essentially iniquity and departure from rectitude with relation to our last end, and therefore destroys divine filiation or participation in the divine nature. But even by absolute power justice cannot be made to coexist with injustice, sanctity with iniquity and impurity, or rectitude with a turning aside from rectitude.

This would be the denial of the principle of contradiction or of identity: being is being, nonbeing is nonbeing, good is good, evil is evil, spirit is spirit, flesh is flesh. But once this supreme principle should be denied, it would give way to absolute, atheistic evolutionism the formula of which is found in the first proposition of the syllabus of Pius IX (Denz., no. 1701): “No supreme, all-wise, all-provident divine power exists distinct from the universe of things; God is the same as the nature of things and therefore subject to change, God is actually made in man,…and God is one and the same thing with the world and, therefore, spirit with matter, necessity with liberty, truth with falsehood, good with evil, and the just with the unjust.” It is to this that the opinion of the Nominalists, Scotus, and Suarez leads. 

Suarez objects: The sanctification or deification of the soul is not a primary but a secondary effect of grace. But by absolute power secondary effects may be separated from a form, as risibility from rationality. Therefore by absolute power habitual grace may exist without sanctification.

Thomists answer: I deny the major. This effect, namely, sanctification, is the primary effect of sanctifying grace, for grace is essentially a participation in the divine nature and supernatural substantially; it is not, as the Nominalists claimed, something entitatively natural conferring, by divine institution, a right to glory, as a bank note confers a right to receive money. Cf. above on the essence of sanctifying grace the primary formal effect of which is to sanctify. Thus the Nominalist conception of grace would be destructive of the whole supernatural order in us since this order would become entitatively natural. This debased form of theology held by the Nominalists is indeed wretched and worthy of contempt.3  Molina, although he taught that the act of infused faith is not specified by a higher formal object than that of acquired faith such as exists in the demons, never-theless elsewhere deplored deep-rooted and unconscious Nominalism. 

I insist. An act can coexist with the contrary habit, for instance, an act of intemperance with the habit of temperance. But habitual grace is a habit, whereas mortal sin is an act. Therefore they can co-exist in the same man.

Reply. 1. This proves too much, for then even by ordinary power habitual grace might coexist with mortal sin, just as the habit of temperance may coexist in corrupt human nature with the sin of intemperance by ordinary power. But all theologians deny such a possibility by ordinary power. 

2. There is a distinction to be made between acquired habits which are acquired by repeated acts and not destroyed by one sin, and the infused habits of grace and charity which are not acquired and are taken away in an instant by mortal sin which essentially includes the opposite matter of injustice and deviation from rectitude with regard to the final end.

I insist. But habitual grace resides in the essence of the soul, whereas sin lies in the will.

Reply. By the very fact that there is mortal sin, it follows that injustice and iniquity are present in the whole man; for sin destroys in the will the last disposition for habitual grace which resides in the essence of the soul and destroys as well the necessary properties of grace.

I insist. But sin does not expel grace physically, but only demeritoriously.

Reply. It does not expel grace physically, by a positive form, acting physically: granted; by its nature: denied. For iniquity, injustice, withdrawal from God, the death of the soul by its nature physically expels sanctity, approach to God, the life of the soul. 

I insist. God is not necessitated to withdraw grace from a sinner.  Therefore.

Reply. God is not necessitated absolutely to do so: granted; but He is necessitated on the supposition that He permits man to fall into mortal sin, for God cannot will two contradictories simultaneously.

I insist. God does not remove His grace from those once justified, unless He is first abandoned by them, according to the Council of Trent, Sess. VI, chap. II. Therefore sin precedes the withdrawal of grace and hence coexists with grace.

Reply. That mortal sin precedes the withdrawal of grace by a priority of time: denied; by a priority of nature on the part of the material cause: granted, as will be explained below (a. 8), just as darkness ceases in the atmosphere before the latter is illuminated, by a priority of nature but not of time.  

PART TWO: THE ACTS WHICH CONCUR IN THE

JUSTIFICATION OF A N ADULT SINNER

State of the question. We have already seen (q.112, a. 2) that a certain disposition is required for the justification of an adult which is effected under the influence of prevenient actual grace. Now we are concerned with the free acts required for justification. Let us first examine the Church’s definition of faith according to the Council of Trent, in opposition to the Protestants who held that only confident faith in the remission of our sins was required for justification, The Council of Trent (Sess. VI, chap. 6; Denz., no. 798) assigns six acts required for the justification of an Bdult sinner: I. faith, 2. fear, 3.  hope, 4. love of God, 5. repentance or contrition, and 6. the intention of receiving the sacrament instituted for the remission of sins, of beginning a new life and of keeping the divine commands, which intention is included in contrition itself. We shall see how this doctrine of the Church had already been admirably explained in the present article by St. Thomas long before the Protestant heresy.