Chapter V: Section 1: The Necessity Of Actual Grace (1)

In treating of the necessity of actual grace we must avoid two extremes. The first is that mere nature is absolutely incapable of doing any thing good. This error was held by the early Protestants and the followers of Baius and Jansenius. The second is that nature is able to perform supernatural acts by its own power. This was taught by the Pelagians and Semipelagians.

Between these two extremes Catholic theology keeps the golden mean. It defends the capacity of human nature against Protestants and Jansenists, and upholds its incapacity and impotence against Pelagians and Semipelagians. Thus our present Section naturally falls into three Articles.

Article 1. The Capacity Of Mere Nature Without Grace

The capacity of nature in its own domain may be considered with regard either to the intellect or to the will.

*Thesis I: Man is capable by the natural power of his intellect to arrive at a knowledge of God from a consideration of the physical universe.*

This proposition embodies an article of faith defined by the Vatican Council: “If any one shall say that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be certainly known by the natural light of human reason through created things, let him be anathema.”(116)

For a formal demonstration of this truth we must refer the reader to our treatise on _God: His Knowability, Essence, and Attributes_, pp. 17 sqq. The argument there given may be supplemented by the following considerations:

1. The Vatican Council vindicates the native power of the human intellect when it says: “The Catholic Church, with one consent, has ever held and does hold, that there is a twofold order of knowledge, distinct both in principle and in object: in principle, because our knowledge in the one is by natural reason, and in the other by divine faith; in object, because, besides those things to which natural reason can attain, there are proposed to our belief mysteries hidden in God, which, unless divinely revealed, cannot be known.”(117) This teaching, which the Church had repeatedly emphasized on previous occasions against the scepticism of Nicholas de Ultricuria,(118) the rationalistic philosophy of Pomponazzi, the “log-stick-and-stone” theory(119) of Martin Luther, the exaggerations of the Jansenists, and the vagaries of the Traditionalists,(120) is based on Revelation as well as on sound reason. Holy Scripture clearly teaches that we can gain a certain knowledge of God from a consideration of the created universe.(121) Reason tells us that a creature endowed with intelligence must be capable of acquiring natural knowledge, and that supernatural faith is based on certain _praeambula_, which are nothing else than philosophical and historical truths.(122) “The existence of God and other like truths,” says St. Thomas, “are not articles of faith, but preambles to the articles; for faith presupposes natural knowledge, even as grace presupposes nature, and perfection something that can be perfected.”(123) Luther denounced reason as the most dangerous thing on earth, because “all its discussions and conclusions are as certainly false and erroneous as there is a God in Heaven.”(124) The Church teaches, in accordance with sound philosophy and experience, that the original powers of human nature, especially free-will, though greatly weakened, have not been destroyed by original sin.(125) The Scholastics, it is true, reckoned ignorance among the four “wounds of nature” inflicted by original sin.(126) But this teaching must be regarded in the light in which the Church condemned Quesnel’s proposition that “All natural knowledge of God, even that found in pagan philosophers, can come from nowhere else than God, and without grace produces nothing but presumption, vanity, and opposition against God Himself, instead of adoration, gratitude, and love.”(127) The Traditionalist contention that the intrinsic weakness of the human intellect can be cured only by a primitive revelation handed down through the instrumentality of speech and instruction, or by a special interior illumination, involves the false assumption that there can be a cognitive faculty incapable of knowledge,—which would ultimately lead to a denial of the essential distinction between nature and the supernatural, because it represents exterior revelation or interior grace as something positively due to fallen nature.(128) Following the lead of St. Thomas,(129) Catholic apologists, while maintaining the necessity of a supernatural revelation even with regard to the truths of natural religion and ethics, base their argument not on the alleged physical incapacity of reason to ascertain these truths, but on the moral impossibility (_i.e._ insuperable difficulty) of finding them unaided. “It is to be ascribed to this divine Revelation,” says the Vatican Council, “that such truths among things divine as are not of themselves beyond human reason, can, even in the present state of mankind, be known by every one with facility and firm assurance, and without admixture of error.”(130) In conformity with the teaching of Revelation and Tradition, the Church has always sharply distinguished between πίστις and γνῶσις,—faith and knowledge, revelation and philosophy,—assigning to reason the double rôle of an indispensable forerunner and a docile handmaid of faith. Far from antagonizing reason, as charged by her enemies, the Church has on the contrary always valiantly championed its rights against Scepticism, Positivism, Criticism, Traditionalism, Rationalism, Pantheism, and Modernism.(131)

2. As regards those purely natural truths that constitute the domain of science and art, Catholic divines are practically unanimous(132) in holding that, though man possesses the physical ability of knowing every single one of these truths, even the most highly gifted cannot master them all. Cardinal Mezzofanti had acquired a knowledge of many languages,(133) and undoubtedly was capable of learning many more; yet without a special grace he could not have learned all the languages spoken on earth, though their number is by no means infinite. The science of mathematics, which embraces but a limited field of knowledge, comprises an indefinite number of propositions and problems which even the greatest genius can not master. Add to these impediments the shortness of human life, the limitations of the intellect, the multitude and intricacy of scientific methods, the inaccessibility of many objects which are in themselves knowable, (_e.g._ the interior of the earth, the stellar universe)—and you have a host of limitations which make it physically impossible for the mind of man to encompass the realm of natural truths.(134)

*Thesis II: Fallen man, whether pagan or sinner, is able to perform some naturally good works without the aid of grace.*

This thesis may be technically qualified as _propositio certa_.

Proof. A man performing moral acts may be either in a state of unbelief, or of mortal sin, or of sanctifying grace. The question here at issue is chiefly whether all the works of pagans, that is all acts done without grace of any kind, are morally bad, or whether any purely natural works may be good despite the absence of grace. Baius and Jansenius affirmed this; nay more, they asserted that no man can perform good works unless he is in the state of grace and inspired by a perfect love of God (_caritas_). If this were true, all the works of pagans and of such Christians as have lost the faith, would be so many sins. But it is _not_ true. The genuine teaching of the Church may be gathered from her official condemnation of the twenty-fifth, the twenty-sixth, and the thirty-seventh propositions of Baius. These propositions run as follows: “Without the aid of God’s grace free-will hath power only to sin;”(135) “To admit that there is such a thing as a natural good, _i.e._ one which originates solely in the powers of nature, is to share the error of Pelagius;”(136) “All the actions of unbelievers are sins and the virtues of philosophers vices.”(137) To these we may add the proposition condemned by Pope Alexander VIII, that “The unbeliever necessarily sins in whatever he does.”(138)

1. Sacred Scripture and the Fathers, St. Augustine included, admit the possibility of performing naturally good, though unmeritorious, works (_opera steriliter bona_) in the state of unbelief; and their teaching is in perfect conformity with right reason.

a) Our Divine Lord Himself says:(139) “If you love them that love you, what reward(140) shall you have? Do not even the publicans this? And if you salute(141) your brethren only, what do you more? Do not also the heathens(142) this?” The meaning plainly is: To salute one’s neighbor is an act of charity, a naturally good deed, common even among the heathens, and one which, not being done from a supernatural motive, deserves no supernatural reward. But this does not by any means imply that to salute one’s neighbor is sinful.

St. Paul(143) says: “For when the gentiles,(144) who have not the law,(145) do by nature(146) those things that are of the law; these having not the law are a law to themselves: who shew the work of the law written in their hearts.” By “gentiles” the Apostle evidently means genuine heathens, not converts from paganism to Christianity, and hence the meaning of the passage is that the heathens who know the natural law embodied in the Decalogue only as a postulate of reason, are by nature(147) able to “do those things that are of the law,”(148) _i.e._ observe at least some of its precepts. That St. Paul did not think the gentiles capable of observing the whole law without the aid of grace appears from his denunciation of their folly, a little further up in the same Epistle: “Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened, etc.,”(149) and also from the hypothetic form of Rom. II, 14 in the original Greek text: “Ὅταν γὰρ ἔθνη ... τὰ τοῦ νόμου ποιῶσιν—_Si quando gentes, ... quae legis sunt, faciunt._”(150)

In Rom. XIV, 23: “For all that is not faith is sin,”(151) a text often quoted against our thesis, “faith” does not mean the theological habit of faith, but “conscience,”(152) as the context clearly shows.(153)

b) The teaching of the Fathers is in substantial harmony with Sacred Scripture.

α) Thus St. Jerome, speaking of the reward which Yahweh gave to Nabuchodonosor for his services against Tyre,(154) says: “The fact that Nabuchodonosor was rewarded for a good work shows that even the gentiles in the judgment of God are not passed over without a reward when they have performed a good deed.”(155) In his commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians the same holy Doctor observes: “Many who are without the faith and have not the Gospel of Christ, yet perform prudent and holy actions, _e.g._ by obeying their parents, succoring the needy, not oppressing their neighbors, not taking away the possessions of others.”(156)

β) The teaching of St. Augustine offers some difficulties. There can be no doubt that this Father freely admitted that pagans and infidels can perform naturally good works without faith and grace. Thus he says there is no man so wicked that some good cannot be found in him.(157) He extols the moderation of Polemo(158) and the purity of Alypius, who were both pagans.(159) He admires the civic virtues of the ancient Romans,(160) etc. Holding such views, how could Augustine write: “Neither doth free-will avail for anything except sin, if the way of truth is hidden.”(161) And what did his disciple Prosper mean when he said: “The whole life of unbelievers is a sin, and nothing is good without the highest good. For wherever there is no recognition of the supreme and immutable truth, there can be no genuine virtue, even if the moral standard be of the highest.”(162)

To understand these and similar passages rightly and to explain at the same time how it was possible for Baius and Jansenius to bolster their heretical systems with quotations from the writings of St. Augustine and his disciples, it is necessary to observe that the quondam rhetorician and Platonic idealist of Hippo delights in applying to the genus the designation which belongs to its highest species, and _vice versa_.(163) Thus, in speaking of liberty, he often means the perfect liberty enjoyed by our first parents in Paradise;(164) in using the term “children of God” he designates those who persevere in righteousness;(165) and in employing the phrase “a good work” he means one supernaturally meritorious. Or, _vice versa_, he designates the slightest good impulse of the will as “_caritas_,” as it were by anticipation, and brands every unmeritorious work (_opus informe s. sterile_) as false virtue (_falsa virtus_), nay sin (_peccatum_). To interpret St. Augustine correctly, therefore, allowance must be made for his peculiar idealism and a careful distinction drawn between the real and the metaphorical sense of the terms which he employs. Baius neglected this precaution and furthermore paid no attention to the controversial attitude of the holy Doctor. Augustine’s peculiar task was not to maintain the possibility of naturally good works without faith and grace, but to defend against Pelagius and Julian the impossibility of performing supernaturally good and meritorious works without the aid of grace. It is this essential difference in their respective points of view that explains how St. Augustine and Baius were able to employ identical or similar terms to express radically different ideas.(166)

c) It can easily be demonstrated on theological grounds that fallen man is able, of his own initiative, _i.e._ without the aid of grace, to perform morally good works, and that Baius erred in asserting that this is impossible without theological faith.

α) With regard to the first-mentioned point it will be well, for the sake of clearness, to adopt Palmieri’s distinction between physical and moral capacity.(167) Man sins whenever he transgresses the law or yields to temptation. This would be impossible if he were physically unable to keep the whole law and resist temptation. Hence he must be physically able to do that which he is obliged to do under pain of sin, though in this or that individual instance the difficulties may be insuperable without the aid of grace. To put it somewhat differently: Baius and Jansenius hold that fallen man can perform no morally good works because of physical or moral impotence on the part of the will. This assumption is false. Man is physically able to perform good works because they are enjoined by the moral law of nature under pain of sin; he is morally able because, in spite of numerous evil tendencies, not a few gentiles and unbelievers have led upright lives and thereby proved that man can perform good works without the aid of grace.(168) This is also the teaching of St. Thomas.(169)

β) It is an expressly defined dogma that the process of justification starts with theological faith (_fides_), preceded by the so-called grace of vocation, which prepares and effects conversion. To say, as Baius did, that all good works performed in a state of unbelief are so many sins, is tantamount to asserting that the preliminary acts leading up to faith, and which the unbeliever performs by the aid of prevenient grace, are sinful; in other words, that God requires the unbeliever to prepare himself for justification by committing sin. This is as absurd as it is heretical.(170)

The whole argument of this section applies _a fortiori_ to the theory that no act can be morally good unless prompted by both theological charity and theological faith.(171)

2. We must now define the limitations of fallen nature unaided by grace. Though the graces dispensed by Providence even for naturally good deeds are in the present economy _de facto_ nearly all supernatural, nothing prevents us from conceiving a different economy, consisting of purely natural helps, such as would have been necessary in the state of pure nature.(172)

As regards the limitations of man’s moral power in the natural order, we may say, in a general way, that the will is able to keep the easier precepts of the moral law of nature without the assistance of grace (either supernatural or natural). However, as it is impossible in many instances to determine just where the easier precepts end and the more difficult ones begin, a broad field is left open for theological speculation.

a) Theologians are practically unanimous in holding that man cannot observe the natural law in its entirety for any considerable length of time without the aid of grace.

Suarez is so sure of this that he does not hesitate to denounce the contrary teaching,—which is (perhaps unjustly) ascribed to Durandus, Scotus, and Gabriel Biel—as “rash and verging on error.”(173) In matter of fact the Church has formally defined that, because of concupiscence, no one, not even the justified man, much less the sinner, is able, without divine assistance (grace), to keep for any considerable length of time the whole Decalogue, which embodies the essentials of the moral law. “Nevertheless,” says the Council of Trent, “let those who think themselves to stand take heed lest they fall, and with fear and trembling work out their salvation, ... for ... they ought to fear for the combat which yet remains with the flesh, with the world, with the devil, wherein they cannot be victorious unless they be with God’s grace obedient to the Apostle, who says: ‘We are debtors, etc.’ ”(174)

St. Paul, who lived, so to speak, in an atmosphere of grace, yet found reason to exclaim: “I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inward man, but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members,”(175) and: “Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord.”(176) Surely it would be vain to expect the proud ideal of the Stoics or Pelagius’ presumptuous claim of impeccability ever to be realized on earth except by a special privilege of grace, such as that bestowed upon the Blessed Virgin Mary.(177)

The Fathers follow St. Paul in describing the power of concupiscence, even after justification.(178)

b) A pertinent question, closely allied to the proposition just treated, is this: Can the human will, without the aid of grace, overcome all the grievous temptations to mortal sin by which it is besieged?

It is the common teaching of theologians that, without the aid of grace, man in the fallen state succumbs with moral (not physical) necessity to grievous temptations against the moral law, _i.e._ to mortal sin. This conclusion flows from the impossibility, which we have demonstrated above, of observing the whole law of nature for life or for any considerable length of time without the help of grace. If man were able to resist all violent temptations, he would be able to keep the whole law.

The theological teaching which we are here expounding may be formulated in two different ways: (1) No man can overcome all grievous temptations against the moral law without the aid of grace; (2) there is no man living who is not now and then assailed by temptations to which he would inevitably succumb did not God lend him His assistance.

In its first and rather indefinite form the proposition is attacked by Ripalda,(179) Molina,(180) and many later Scholastics. These writers argue as follows: It is impossible to deduce from Revelation or experience a definite rule by which man could determine the conditions on which the grievousness of a temptation depends. To say that a temptation is grievous when it cannot be resisted without the aid of grace, would be begging the question. Besides, the possibility always remains that there be men who, though in theory unable to withstand all grievous temptations without the aid of grace, _de facto_ never meet with such temptations, but only with the lighter kind which can be overcome without supernatural help.

The second and more specific formulation of our proposition is supported by Sacred Scripture, which explicitly declares that all men are subject to temptations which they could not resist if God did not uphold them.(181)

If the just are obliged to watch and pray constantly, lest they fall,(182) this must be true in an even higher degree of sinners and unbelievers. St. Augustine writes against the Pelagians: “Faithful men say in their prayer: ‘Lead us not into temptation.’ But if they have the capacity [of avoiding evil], why do they pray [for it]? Or, what is the evil which they pray to be delivered from, but, above all else, the body of this death?... the carnal lusts, whence a man is liberated only by the grace of the Saviour.... He may be permitted to pray that he may be healed. Why does he presume so strongly on the capability of his nature? It is wounded, hurt, harassed, destroyed; what it stands in need of is a true confession [of its weakness], not a false defense [of its capacity].”(183)

c) Another question, on which Catholic divines disagree, is this: Can fallen man, unaided by grace, elicit an act of perfect natural charity (_amor Dei naturalis perfectus_)?

Scotus answers this question affirmatively,(184) and his opinion is shared by Cajetan,(185) Bañez,(186) Dominicus Soto,(187) and Molina.(188) Other equally eminent theologians, notably Suarez(189) and Bellarmine,(190) take the negative side.

In order to obtain a clear understanding of the question at issue we shall have to attend to several distinctions.

First and above all we must not lose sight of the important distinction between the _natural_ and the _supernatural_ love of God. Supernatural charity, in all its stages, necessarily supposes supernatural aid. The question therefore can refer only to the _amor Dei naturalis_.(191) That this natural charity is no mere figment appears from the ecclesiastical condemnation of two propositions of Baius.(192)

Another, even more important distinction is that between _perfect_ and _imperfect_ charity. Imperfect charity is the love of God as our highest good (_amor Dei ut summum bonum nobis_); perfect charity is the love of God for His own sake above all things (_amor Dei propter se et super omnia_). The holy Fathers and a number of councils(193) declare that it is impossible to love God perfectly without the aid of grace. The context and such stereotyped explanatory phrases as “_sicut oportet_” or “_sicut expedit ad salutem_,”(194) show that these Patristic and conciliary utterances apply to the _supernatural_ love of God. Hence the question narrows itself down to this: Can fallen man without the aid of grace love God for His own sake and above all things by a purely natural love? In answering this question Pesch,(195) Tepe,(196) and other theologians distinguish between _affective_ and _effective_ love. They hold that whereas the _amor affectivus_ in all its stages is possible without the aid of grace, not so the _amor effectivus_, since that would involve the observance of the whole natural law. This compromise theory can be demonstrated as highly probable from Scripture and Tradition. St. Paul says(197) that the gentiles knew God and should have glorified Him. This evidently supposes that it was possible for them to glorify God, and consequently to love Him affectively, as easily and with the same means by which they knew Him. Else how could the Apostle say of those gentiles who, “when they knew God, glorified him not as God,” that they “changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator”?(198) This interpretation of Rom. I, 21 sqq. is explicitly confirmed by St. Ambrose when he says: “For they were able to apprehend this by the law of nature, inasmuch as the fabric of the cosmos testifies that God, its author, is alone to be loved, as Moses hath set it down in his writings; but they were made impious by not glorifying God, and unrighteousness became evident in them when, knowing, they changed the truth into a lie and refused to confess the one God.”(199)

3. It follows, by way of corollary, that Vasquez’s opinion,(200) that there can be no good work without supernatural aid in the shape of a _cogitatio congrua_, is untenable, as is also the assertion of Ripalda(201) that in the present economy purely natural good actions are so invariably connected with the prevenient grace of Christ that they practically never exist as such.

a) Vasquez, whose position in the matter is opposed by most other theologians, contends(202) that no man can perform a good work or resist any temptation against the natural law (Decalogue) without the help of supernatural grace derived from the merits of Christ. To avoid the heretical extreme of Baianism, however, he makes a twofold limitation. He assumes with the Scotists that there is such a thing as a morally indifferent act of the will,(203) and defines the grace which he holds to be necessary for the performance of every morally good deed, as _cogitatio congrua_. This “congruous thought,” he says, is in itself, _i.e._ ontologically, natural, and can be regarded as supernatural only _quoad modum et finem_. The subtle argument by which Vasquez tries to establish this thesis is based principally on St. Augustine and may be summarized as follows: Whenever the Fathers and councils insist on the necessity of grace for the performance of good works, they mean _all_ good works, natural as well as supernatural. The only alternative they know is virtue or vice, good or evil. Consequently the grace of Christ, in some form or other, is a necessary requisite of all morally good deeds.

As we have already intimated, we regard this opinion of the learned Spanish divine as erroneous.(204) Three solid reasons militate against it. The first is that, to guard against Baianism, Vasquez is compelled to assume the existence of morally indifferent acts of the will, which is untenable, as “St. Augustine and St. Thomas, and theologians generally teach that there is no such thing in the concrete as a morally indifferent act of the free will, and consequently, if the will is able, without grace, to perform acts that are not evil, it is also able to perform good acts.”(205) Second, Vasquez’s theory counterfeits the notion of Christian grace. “Good thoughts” come so natural to man, and are so closely bound up with the grace of creation, that even Pelagius found no difficulty in admitting this sort of “grace.”(206) Surely fallen nature is not so utterly corrupt that a good child is unable to honor and love his parents without the aid of “grace” (in the sense of _cogitatio congrua ex meritis Christi_). The third reason which constrains us to reject Vasquez’s theory, is that it leaves no room for natural morality (_naturaliter honestum_) to fill the void between those acts that are naturally bad (_moraliter inhonesta_, _i.e._ _peccata_) and such as are supernaturally good (_supernaturaliter bona_, _i.e._ _salutaria_). The existence of such naturally good acts would seem to be a highly probable inference from the condemnation, by Pius VI, of a certain proposition taught by the pseudo-Council of Pistoia.(207)

b) Martinez de Ripalda (+1648) tried to improve Vasquez’s theory by restoring the Christian concept of grace and adding that Providence invariably precedes all naturally good works, including those performed by heathens and sinners, with the entitatively supernatural grace of illumination and confirmation.(208) In this hypothesis the necessity of grace is not theological but purely historic.(209)

Despite the wealth of arguments by which Ripalda attempted to prove his theory,(210) it has not been generally accepted. While some, _e.g._ Platel(211) and Pesch,(212) regard it with a degree of sympathy, others, notably De Lugo(213) and Tepe,(214) are strongly opposed to it. Palmieri thinks it may be accepted in a restricted sense, _i.e._ when limited to the faithful.(215)

Ripalda’s hypothesis of the universality of grace is truly sublime and would have to be accepted if God’s salvific will could be demonstrated by revelation or some historic law to suffer no exceptions. But Ripalda has not been able to prove this from Revelation.(216) Then, too, his theory entails two extremely objectionable conclusions: (1) a denial, not indeed of the possibility (Quesnel), but of the existence of purely natural good works, and (2) the possibility of justification without theological faith. Neither of these difficulties probably occurred to Vasquez or Ripalda,(217) because at the time when they wrote Pius VI had not yet condemned the teaching of the pseudo-Council of Pistoia,(218) nor had Innocent XI censured the proposition that “Faith in a broad sense, as derived from the testimony of creatures or some other similar motive, is sufficient for justification.”(219) If the love of God, even perfect love, (such as we have shown to be possible in the natural order), were of itself necessarily supernatural, as Ripalda contends, it would be possible for a pagan to receive the grace of justification without theological faith, which he does not possess, as is evident from the Vatican teaching that it is “requisite for divine faith that revealed truth be believed because of the authority of God who reveals it.”(220)

*Thesis III: Not all actions performed by man in the state of mortal sin are sinful on account of his not being in the state of grace.*

This is _de fide_.

Proof. Though this thesis is, strictly speaking, included in Thesis II, it must be demonstrated separately on its own merits, because it embodies a formally defined dogma which has been denied by the Protestant Reformers and by the followers of Baius and Jansenius. Martin Luther taught,—and his teaching was adopted in a modified form by the Calvinists,—that human nature is entirely depraved by original sin, and consequently man necessarily sins in whatever he does,(221) even in the process of justification. Against this heresy the Tridentine Council defined: “If any one shall say that all the works done before justification ... are indeed sins, ... let him be anathema.”(222)

The Protestant notion of grace was reduced to a theological system by Baius(223) and Jansenius,(224) whose numerous errors may all be traced to their denial of the supernatural order.

The Jansenist teaching was pushed to an extreme by Paschasius Quesnel, 101 of whose propositions were formally condemned by Pope Clement XI in his famous Constitution “_Unigenitus_.”(225) The Jansenistic teachings of the Council of Pistoia were censured by Pius VI, A. D. 1794, in his Bull “_Auctorem fidei_.” The quintessence of this heretical system is embodied in the proposition that whatever a man does in the state of mortal sin is necessarily sinful for the reason that he is not in the state of grace (_status caritatis_). Baius(226) and Quesnel(227) gave this teaching an Augustinian turn by saying that there is no intermediate state between the love of God and concupiscence, and that all the works of a sinner must consequently and of necessity be sinful. This heretical teaching is sharply condemned in the Bull “_Auctorem fidei_.”(228) Quesnel pushed it to its last revolting conclusion when he said: “The prayer of the wicked is a new sin, and that God permits it is but an additional judgment upon them.”(229)

The teaching of Baius and Quesnel is repugnant to Revelation and to the doctrine of the Fathers.

a) The Bible again and again exhorts sinners to repent, to pray for forgiveness, to give alms, etc. Cfr. Ecclus. XXI, 1: “My son, thou hast sinned? Do so no more: but for thy former sins also pray that they may be forgiven thee.” Ezech. XVIII, 30: “Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities: and iniquity shall not be your ruin.” Dan. IV, 24: “Redeem thou thy sins with alms, and thy iniquities with works of mercy to the poor: perhaps he will forgive thy offences.” Zach. I, 3: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Turn ye to me, saith the Lord of hosts: and I will turn to you.” If all the works thus enjoined were but so many sins, we should be forced to conclude, on the authority of Sacred Scripture, that God commands the sinner to commit new iniquities and that the process of justification with its so-called dispositions consists in a series of sinful acts. Such an assumption would be manifestly absurd and blasphemous.

Quesnel endeavored to support his heretical conceit by Matth. VII, 17 sq.: “Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit; a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit.” But as our Lord in this passage speaks of prophets, the fruits he has in mind must obviously be doctrines not works.(230) And what if they were works? Are not doctrines and morals ultimately related, and may we not infer from the lives they lead (according to their doctrines) whether prophets are true or false? By their fruits (_i.e._ works) you shall know them (_i.e._ the soundness or unsoundness of the teaching upon which their works are based).

b) In appealing to the testimony of the Fathers the Jansenists were notoriously guilty of misinterpretation.

α) Origen plainly teaches that prayer before justification is a good work. “Though you are sinners,” he says, “pray to God; God hears the sinners.”(231) The seemingly contradictory text John IX, 31: “Now we know that God doth not hear sinners,”(232) is thus explained by St. Augustine: “He speaks as one not yet anointed; for God also hears the sinners. If He did not hear sinners, the publican would have cast his eyes to the ground in vain and vainly struck his breast saying: O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”(233) Moreover, since there is question here of extraordinary works and signs only (_viz._ miracles), the text is wholly irrelevant in regard to works of personal righteousness. St. Prosper teaches: “Human nature, created by God, even after its prevarication, retains its substance, form, life, senses, and reason, and the other goods of body and soul, which are not lacking even to those who are bad and vicious. But there is no possibility of seizing the true good by such things as may adorn this mortal life, but cannot give [merit] eternal life.”(234)

β) Baius and Quesnel succeeded in veiling their heresy by a phraseology of Augustinian color but with implications foreign to the mind of the Doctor of Grace. Augustine emphasized the opposition between “charity” and “concupiscence” so strongly that the intermediary domain of naturally good works was almost lost to view. Thus he says in his _Enchiridion_: “Carnal lust reigns where there is not the love of God.”(235) And in his treatise on the Grace of Christ: “Here there is no love, no good work is reckoned as done, nor is there in fact any good work, rightly so called; because whatever is not of faith is sin, and faith worketh by love.”(236) And again in his treatise on Grace and Free Will: “The commandments of love or charity are so great and such, that whatever action a man may think he does well, is by no means well done if done without charity.”(237) We have purposely chosen passages in which the “Doctor of Grace” obviously treats of charity as theological love, not in the broad sense of _dilectio_.(238) At first blush these passages seem to agree with the teaching of Baius, who says: “Every love on the part of a rational creature is either sinful cupidity, by which the world is loved, and which is forbidden by St. John, or that praiseworthy charity which is infused into the heart by the Holy Spirit, and by which we love God;”—(239) and with the forty-fifth proposition of Quesnel: “As the love of God no longer reigns in the hearts of sinners, it is necessary that carnal lust should reign in them and vitiate all their actions.”(240) Yet the sense of these propositions is anything but Augustinian. Augustine upholds free-will in spite of grace and concupiscence, whereas the Jansenists assert that the _carnalis cupiditas_ and the _caritas dominans_ produce their effects by the very power of nature, _i.e._ necessarily and of themselves.(241)

Besides this capital difference there are many minor discrepancies between the teaching of St. Augustine and that of Baius and Quesnel. Augustine, it is true, in his struggle with Pelagianism,(242) strongly emphasized the opposition existing between grace and sin, between love of God and love of the world; but he never dreamed of asserting that every act performed in the state of mortal sin is sinful for the reason that it is not performed in the state of grace. Scholasticism has long since applied the necessary corrective to his exaggerations. It is perfectly orthodox to say that there is an irreconcilable opposition between the state of mortal sin and the state of grace. “No one can serve two masters.”(243) This is not, however, by any means equivalent to saying, as the Jansenists do, that the sinner, not being in the state of grace, of necessity sins in whatever he does. Augustine expressly admits that, no matter how deeply God may allow a man to fall, and no matter how strongly concupiscence may dominate his will, he is yet able to pray for grace, which is in itself a distinctly salutary act. “If a sin is such,” he says in his _Retractationes_, “that it is itself a punishment for sin, what can the will under the domination of cupidity do, except, if it be pious, to pray for help?”(244) Compare this sentence with the fortieth proposition of Baius: “The sinner in all his actions serves the lust which rules him,”(245) and you will perceive the third essential difference that separates the teaching of St. Augustine from that of the Jansenists. The former, even when he speaks, not of the two opposing habits, but of their respective acts, does not, like Jansenism, represent the universality of sin without theological charity as a physical and fundamental necessity, but merely as a historical phenomenon which admits of exceptions. Thus he writes in his treatise On the Spirit and the Letter: “If they who by nature do the things contained in the law, must not be regarded as yet in the number of those whom Christ’s grace justifies, but rather as among those whose actions (although they are those of ungodly men who do not truly and rightly worship the true God) we not only cannot blame, but actually praise, and with good reason, and rightly too, since they have been done, so far as we read or know or hear, according to the rule of righteousness; though were we to discuss the question with what motive they are done, they would hardly be found to be such as to deserve the praise and defense which are due to righteous conduct.”(246)

In conclusion we will quote a famous passage from St. Augustine which reads like a protest against the distortions of Baius and Jansenius. “Love,” he says, “is either divine or human; human love is either licit or illicit.... I speak first of licit human love, which is free from censure; then, of illicit human love, which is damnable; and in the third place, of divine love, which leads us to Heaven.... You, therefore, have that love which is licit; it is human, but, as I have said, licit, so much so that, if it were lacking, [the want of] it would be censured. You are permitted with human love to love your spouse, your children, your friends and fellow-citizens. But, as you see, the ungodly, too, have this love, _e.g._ pagans, Jews, heretics. Who among them does not love his wife, his children, his brethren, his neighbors, his relations and friends? This, therefore, is human love. If any one would be so unfeeling as to lose even human love, not loving his own children, ... we should no longer regard him as a human being.”(247) Tepe pertinently observes(248) that St. Augustine in this passage asserts not only the possibility but the actual existence of naturally good though unmeritorious works (_opera steriliter __ bona_), and that the theory of Ripalda(249) is untenable for this reason, if for no other, that the quoted passage is cited in Pius VI’s Bull “_Auctorem fidei_.”(250)

Article 2. The Necessity Of Actual Grace For All Salutary Acts

Salutary acts (_actus salutares_) are those directed to the attainment of sanctifying grace and the supernatural end of man.

According to this double purpose, salutary acts may be divided into two classes: (1) those that prepare for justification (_actus simpliciter salutares_), and (2) those which, following justification, gain merits for Heaven (_actus meritorii_).

In consequence of the supernatural character of the acts which they comprise, both these categories are diametrically opposed to that class of acts which are good only in a natural way,(251) and hence must be carefully distinguished from the latter. The Fathers did not, of course, employ the technical terms of modern theology; they had their own peculiar phrases for designating what we call salutary acts, _e.g._ _agere sicut oportet vel expedit, agere ad salutem, agere ad iustificationem, agere ad vitam aeternam_, etc.(252)

1. PELAGIANISM.—Pelagianism started as a reaction against Manichaeism, but fell into the opposite extreme of exaggerating the capacity of human nature at the expense of grace. It denied original sin(253) and grace.

As the necessity of grace for all salutary acts is a fundamental dogma of the Christian religion, the Church proceeded with unusual severity against Pelagian naturalism and condemned its vagaries through the mouth of many councils.

a) Pelagius was a British lay monk, who came to Rome about the year 400 to propagate his erroneous views.(254) He found a willing pupil in Celestius, who after distinguishing himself as a lawyer, had been ordained to the priesthood at Ephesus, about 411.

The Pelagian heresy gained another powerful champion in the person of Bishop Julian of Eclanum in Apulia. Its strongest opponent was St. Augustine. Under his powerful blows the Pelagians repeatedly changed their tactics, without however giving up their cardinal error in regard to grace. Their teaching on this point may be summarized as follows: The human will is able by its natural powers to keep all the commandments of God, to resist temptation, and to gain eternal life; in fact it can attain to a state of holiness and impeccability(255) in which the petition “Forgive us our trespasses” no longer has any meaning except perhaps as an expression of humility.(256) In so far, however, as free-will is itself a gift of the Creator, man can perform no good works without grace. At a later period of his career Pelagius admitted the existence of merely external supernatural graces, such as revelation and the example of Christ and the saints,—which led St. Augustine to remark: “This is the hidden and despicable poison of your heresy that you represent the grace of Christ as His example, not His gift, alleging that man is justified by imitating Him, not by the ministration of the Holy Spirit.”(257) But even this external grace, according to Pelagius, does not confer the strength necessary to perform good works; it merely makes it easier to keep the commandments. Pelagius did not deny that justification and adoptive sonship, considered in their ideal relation to the “kingdom of Heaven,” as distinguished from “eternal life,”(258) are not identical in adults with the grace of creation, but he denied their gratuity by asserting that the free will is able to merit all these graces by its own power.(259)

Whatever may have been the variations of Pelagianism, it is patent from the writings of St. Augustine that its defenders one and all rejected the necessity and existence of the immediate grace of the will.(260) Their attitude towards the illuminating grace of the intellect is in dispute. Some theologians(261) think the Pelagians admitted, others(262) that they denied its existence. No matter what they may have held on this point, there can be no doubt that the followers of Pelagius conceived the object of grace to be nothing more than to facilitate the work of salvation.

b) Within the short span of twenty years (A. D. 411 to 431) no less than twenty-four councils occupied themselves with this new heresy.

At first the wily heretic succeeded in deceiving the prelates assembled at Lydda (Diospolis), A. D. 415; but the bishops of Northern Africa, among them St. Augustine, roundly condemned his teaching at two councils held with the sanction of Pope Innocent I at Carthage and Mileve in 416. Shortly afterwards, deceived by the terms of the creeds and explanations which they circulated, Pope Zosimus (417-418) declared both Pelagius and Celestius to be innocent. Despite this intervention, however, two hundred African bishops, at a plenary council held at Carthage, A. D. 418, reiterated the canons of Mileve and submitted them for approval to the Holy See. These proceedings induced Zosimus to adopt stronger measures. In his _Epistula Tractoria_ (418) he formally condemned Pelagianism and persuaded the Emperor to send Julian of Eclanum and seventeen other recalcitrant bishops into exile. The canons of Carthage and Mileve were subsequently received by the universal Church as binding definitions of the faith. The most important of them in regard to grace is this: “If anyone shall say that the grace of justification is given to us for the purpose of enabling us to do more easily by the aid of grace what we are commanded to do by free-will, as if we were able, also, though less easily, to observe the commandments of God without the help of grace, let him be anathema.”(263) The Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (A. D. 431), with the approval of Pope Celestine I, renewed the condemnation of Celestius, but it was not until nearly a century later that Pelagianism received its death-blow. In 529 the Second Council of Orange defined: “If any one assert that he is able, by the power of nature, and without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Ghost, who grants to all men the disposition believingly to accept the truth, rightly (_ut expedit_) to think or choose anything good pertaining to eternal salvation, or to assent to salutary, _i.e._ evangelical preaching, such a one is deceived by a heretical spirit.”(264) This decision was reiterated by the Council of Trent: “If any one saith that the grace of God through Jesus Christ is given only for this, that man may be able more easily to live justly and to merit eternal life, as if by free-will without grace he were able to do both, though hardly indeed and with difficulty, let him be anathema.”(265)

2. PELAGIANISM REFUTED.—Sacred Scripture and the Fathers plainly teach that man is unable to perform any salutary act by his own power.

a) Among the many Biblical texts that can be quoted in support of this statement, our Lord’s beautiful parable of the vine and its branches is especially striking. Cfr. John XV, 4 sq.: “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing.”(266)

α) The context shows that Jesus is not speaking here of purely natural works of the kind for which the _concursus generalis_ of God suffices, but that He has in mind salutary acts in the strictly supernatural sense; and the truth He wishes to inculcate is that fallen nature cannot perform such acts except through Him and with His assistance. This supernatural influence is not, however, to be understood exclusively of sanctifying or habitual grace, because our Divine Saviour refers to the fruits of justification and to salutary works. “Of these he does not say: ‘Without me you can do but little,’ but: ‘Without me you can do nothing.’ Be it therefore little or much, it cannot be done without Him, without whom nothing can be done.”(267) If this was true of the Apostles, who were in the state of sanctifying grace,(268) it must be true _a fortiori_ of sinners. Consequently, supernatural grace is absolutely necessary for the performance of any and all acts profitable for salvation.

β) Nowhere is this fundamental truth so clearly and insistently brought out as in the epistles of St. Paul, who is preëminently “the Doctor of Grace” among the Apostles.

There are, according to him, three categories of supernatural acts: salutary thoughts, holy resolves, and good works.

St. Paul teaches that all right thinking is from God. 2 Cor. III, 5: “Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God.”(269)

He also declares that all good resolves come from above. Rom. IX, 15 sq.: “For he saith to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy; and I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”(270)

He furthermore asserts that all good works come from God. Phil. II, 13: “For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will.”(271) 1 Cor. XII, 3: “No man can say: Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost.”(272) Pronouncing the holy name of Jesus is obviously regarded as a salutary act, because mere physical utterance does not require the assistance of the Holy Ghost.(273) But the act as a salutary act is physically impossible without divine assistance, because it is essentially supernatural and consequently exceeds the powers of nature.(274)

b) The argument from Tradition is based almost entirely on the authority of St. Augustine, in whom, as Liebermann observes, God wrought a miracle of grace that he might become its powerful defender. There is no need of quoting specific texts because this whole treatise is interlarded with Augustinian dicta concerning the necessity of grace.

α) An important point is to prove that the early Fathers held the Augustinian, _i.e._ Catholic view. It stands to reason that if these Fathers had taught a different doctrine, the Church would not have so vehemently rejected Pelagianism as an heretical innovation. Augustine himself insists on the novelty of the Pelagian teaching. “Such is the Pelagian heresy,” he says, “which is not an ancient one, but has only lately come into existence.”(275) And this view is confirmed by Pope Celestine I, who declares in his letter to the Bishops of Gaul (A. D. 431): “This being the state of the question, novelty should cease to attack antiquity.”(276)

In fact the teaching of the Apostolic Fathers, although less explicit, agrees entirely with that of Augustine. Thus St. Irenaeus says: “As the dry earth, if it receives no moisture, does not bring forth fruit, so we, being dry wood, could never bear fruit for life without supernatural rain freely given.... The blessing of salvation comes to us from God, not from ourselves.”(277)

The necessity of grace is indirectly inculcated by the Church when she petitions God to grant salutary graces to all men—a most ancient and venerable practice, which Pope St. Celestine explains as follows: “The law of prayer should determine the law of belief. For when the priests of holy nations administer the office entrusted to them, asking God for mercy, they plead the cause of the human race, and together with the whole Church ask and pray that the unbelievers may receive the faith, that the idolaters may be freed from the errors of their impiety, that the veil be lifted from the heart of the Jews, and they be enabled to perceive the light of truth, that the heretics may return to their senses by a true perception of the Catholic faith, that the schismatics may receive the spirit of reborn charity, that the sinners be granted the remedy of penance, and that the door of heavenly mercy be opened to the catechumens who are led to the sacraments of regeneration.”(278) In matters of salvation prayer and grace are correlative terms; the practice of the one implies the necessity and gratuity of the other.(279)

β) That the Fathers not only conceived grace to be necessary for the cure of weakness induced by sin (_gratia sanans_) in a merely moral sense, but thought it to be metaphysically necessary for the communication of physical strength (_gratia elevans_), is evidenced by such oft-recurring similes as these: Grace is as necessary for salvation as the eye is to see, or as wings are to fly, or as rain is for the growth of plants.

It will suffice to quote a passage from the writings of St. Chrysostom. “The eyes,” he says, “are beautiful and useful for seeing, but if they would attempt to see without light, all their beauty and visual power would avail them nothing. Thus, too, the soul is but an obstacle in its own way if it endeavors to see without the Holy Ghost.”(280)

This view is strengthened by the further teaching of the Fathers that supernatural grace was as indispensable to the angels in their state of probation (in which they were free from concupiscence) and to our first parents in Paradise (gifted as they were with the _donum integritatis_), as it is to fallen man; the only difference being that in the case of the latter, grace has the additional object of curing the infirmities and overcoming the difficulties arising from concupiscence. In regard to the angels St. Augustine says; “And who made this will but He who created them with a good will, that is to say with a chaste love by which they should cleave to Him, in one and the same act creating their nature and endowing it with grace?... We must therefore acknowledge, with the praise due to the Creator, that not only of holy men, but also of the holy angels, it can be said that ‘the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given unto them.’ ”(281)