The Controversy
Grace is an unbelievably contentious issue. Historically, arguments surrounding the nature and will of Christ were the most contentious, with grace taking second place. Today, grace reigns supreme. Conservatively, over 96% of Christians agree that Christ has two natures and two wills – divine and human; meanwhile, Catholicism alone hosts three major schools of thought on grace. In this article, I seek to remedy some common confusions. First, I will define what grace is. Then, I will clarify this definition by discussing the major umbrellas of teaching on grace, errors, and the correct teaching.
Though the precise definition of grace is complex and hotly contested, the basic, universal definition is simply this: God’s favor. Remember that God is the Author of creation. God does not respond to the goodness in things like we do; God creates the goodness in things. As St. Paul profoundly says, “what have you that you have not received?” (1 Corinth. 4:7). Why are you better than a rock? Because you have more grace. Why are you better than Satan? Because you have more grace. Why is the Blessed Virgin better than you? Because she is “full of grace” (Luke 1:28). And there are really no means by which anyone could call this arrangement unfair. “Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?” (Rom. 9:19).
God bestows graces upon all things. A rock has the grace of existence, but lacks the graces of self-propulsion or thought, and so forth. But in common parlance, grace refers specifically to supernatural grace – the genus of grace that gets one to Heaven. I will use the term “grace” as shorthand for supernatural, salvific grace throughout the rest of this article. With that, let us narrow down what grace is and get to a more clear definition.
Actual Grace
First, we will address “actual grace.” This is operative, transient grace that moves you to do something. For example, actual graces move one to perform an act of prayer. This is distinct from the sort of grace which resides within the soul, which is addressed in the next section. In this section, I will first discuss common ground, then the two major doctrines of actual grace, and then the damning errors of one.
Universal Heresies
We will begin with universal heresies – views of grace condemned by all Christians, regardless of denomination.
The first and most offensive is Pelagianism. Pelagius, a 5th century monk, was concerned about Christian laxity and presumptuousness. To remedy the problem, he taught a strong position on free will – so strong, in fact, that he even suggested a man could – by use of his own free will – remain sinless his entire life. There are multiple issues with this. First, it makes human will the author of salvation and grace an environmental effect, relegating God to a spectator and helper in our salvation. Second, it empties the sacrifice of Christ by implying that the grace of His atonement is not necessary for the salvation of all. Third, it makes the Old Covenant nothing more than a moral guidepost and deprives the New Covenant of any meaningful differentiation from it. Pelagianism was condemned by the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (431).
St. Augustine was the principal combatant against Pelagianism. He taught divine monergism, the idea man cannot perform salutary acts unless God moves first in the order of causality. This left God’s authorship intact, but raised the opposite questions that Pelagianism did. Does monergism mean God actively damns people by aiding and abetting sin? Could a reprobate justly complain that they were doomed from birth? The Semi-pelagians sought to compromise, teaching that God’s grace is necessary for salvation, but humans have the native ability to make the “first step.” Unfortunately, this runs into the same issue as Pelagianism: God determining, or determined. Who has the gall to claim the latter? The Second Council of Orange condemned Semi-pelagianism on this premise, citing Paul’s question, “what have you that you have not received?”
Common Ground
We have settled one topic: God is the Author of salvation. The next step is to explain how grace interacts with us. Firstly, all agree that free will exists. If it didn’t, then sin could not exist, for sin is definitionally the departure from God’s will. To depart from God’s will, the sinner must have his own will. Secondly, all agree that God desires – truly desires – “[that] all men be saved and come to knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:3-4). Third, all agree that man is capable of rejecting God’s real invitation to Heaven through a depraved interest in some lesser good. “[God] called [the sinner], and was refused” (Prov. 1:24). Fourth, all agree that salvation is God’s act of overcoming our depraved interest in lesser goods through grace. There are two “general” ideas as to how this works while leaving all the prior conclusions intact.
The Molinist Approach
The newer set of doctrines lean more towards the sovereignty of free will and find proponents in Molinism (Catholic, Orthodox) and Arminianism (Protestant). These positions of course teach that God’s grace is necessary for salvation, but that He bestows it based on foreseen cooperation. When God bestows grace upon someone who is not foreseen to cooperate, they reject the grace and frustrate it, leading to sin. Now, obviously, different groups express these points differently. Most Orthodox probably have never heard of a Molinist, yet their position on grace is, essentially, Molinism (see here). Further, Protestant Arminianism is completely incompatible with Catholicism and Orthodoxy – but that is because of other soteriological topics, not because it teaches libertarian free will and foreseen cooperation.
So, how does foreseen cooperation work? The Jesuit Molina argued that God has a type of knowledge called “middle knowledge.” Middle knowledge is knowledge of how free agents will respond to grace. It is outside of God’s control, like His knowledge of necessary truths. God predestines by using His middle knowledge to understand how each man will respond to each grace, and then decides who will receive which grace based on that information. So, God sees through middle knowledge that agent A placed in circumstance C would cooperate with grace, making it efficacious and actually choosing option X over Y. Thus, if God wanted to accomplish X, all God would do is actualize the world in which A is in fact placed in C, and A will freely choose X. God retains providence and achieves His purpose (the actualization of X) without nullifying A’s choice.
Molina’s original teaching was, explicitly, that human free will is what makes grace work, such that man and God work together, 50/50. This was harshly criticized by the Jesuits and rejected promptly. St. Robert Bellarmine – often erroneously thought to hold Molina’s opinion because he holds middle knowledge – when he examined this opinion, wrote: “This theory is entirely alien to the opinion of St. Augustine and, in my judgment, even to the meaning of Holy Scripture.” Claude Aquaviva, General of the order, wrote in 1613: “We ordain and command that in propounding the efficacy of divine grace . . . our fathers should in the future explicitly teach that… something more is always contained, morally, in [grace which one cooperates with] than in [grace which one rejects], both by reason of its benefit and with respect to first act.” What they’re saying is that God causes cooperation in man.
Despite their vehement rejection of Molina’s teaching on the will, Jesuits like Bellarmine and Suarez were fond of middle knowledge. They borrowed it, but posited that circumstance and disposition play a role in God’s sovereign bestowal of grace. When these factors are “congruous,” grace will have the intended effect. For example, an extraordinary grace would be congruous to inspire a hardened killer to overcome his hardness of heart and refrain from stealing $100 at the grocery store, whereas a monk – already well-disposed by practicing the vow of poverty – would find an ordinary grace congruous. The Congruist would further say that God could give the killer the extraordinary grace to infallibly secure his cooperation despite his disposition (like He did to St. Paul), but ordinarily wouldn’t, since it wouldn’t be fitting. Where Molina taught that God depends on cooperation, the Congruists teach that cooperation depends on God.
The Augustinian Approach
The elder doctrines – Thomism (Catholic) and Calvinism (Protestant) lean more towards Augustinian divine monergism. They teach that God’s grace is efficacious in itself – that is, grace moves the will towards the good directly. The Thomists call this relationship “premotion.” Under this system, God’s will has the same relation to our salutary acts as a gas burner does to a stovetop fire. Does this somehow do violence to human free will? Certainly not; the gas on the stovetop does not do violence to the fire, it causes the fire. Far from frustrating free will, premotion is the cause of free will.
If the divine premotion moves the will to act, doesn’t this mean the will is not free after all? Certainly not, as the will maintains its freedom, even in the midst of action. For example, my choice to sit is incompossible with the choice to stand. But no one would say that my choice to sit has somehow made it impossible for me to stand. It is really, truly possible for me to stand, although I have chosen against it. To say the divine will actualizing our choices makes us unfree would be to say that any choice whatsoever makes us unfree, and this is clearly absurd.
But if God is the origin of free action, and some free actions are sins, then is God the origin of sin? Again, certainly not. The premotive power of God is always perfect, though the secondary cause may not be. For example, consider the gas valve on the stove releasing gas, but the stovetop failing to ignite, or a man moving his leg with perfect motive power, but a limp in the leg nonetheless frustrating the act of running. Likewise, God can provide the premotion of grace, while a defect in the human will may overcome it and frustrate it. This means that in order to make grace work, God must provide the premotion in such a way that it infallibly overcomes any such resistance. That is, the Thomists teach that God does not depend on our cooperation for salutary acts; rather they teach that our cooperation depends on God.
The Issues With Molinism
Each of these systems have different methods of marrying predestination with free will. Yet both of them lead to a strange conclusion as well: God could directly will the salvation of all, yet refrains. This topic is worthy of its own discussion, which I have here, but for the purposes of this article, suffice it to say that God wills to save some at all costs to manifest mercy, while He wills to permit others to sin to manifest justice. That is to say, the saved man “plans his way, but God directs his steps” (Prov 16:9), whereas the reprobate man plans his way, and God lets him. The sun shines on the earth, illuminating men’s vision; if a man closes his eyes, he causes his own darkness. Likewise, God gives all men enough grace to be saved, but some He permits to freely – and therefore culpably – resist.
Some theologians and many laymen find Molina’s position attractive due to avoiding unconditional antecedent reprobation, but Molina’s position is self-defeating. Technically it is a permissible opinion, but the Jesuits condemned it for good reasons. First, Molinism only achieves a pyrrhic victory for free will. It diminishes God’s sovereign rule expressed in passages like Romans 9 by replacing it with actual circumstantial determinism. Further, it doesn’t even solve the problem of reprobation. For example, if God really wanted to save all men, couldn’t He omnisciently refrain from creating the damned? Or couldn’t He have created more expedient circumstances, as He obviously must in Heaven? Obviously He could’ve. So we are left with an impotent God, determinism, and the same problem of reprobation we started with! Molinism is an example of why we should not try to escape the Church’s judgments by appealing to spurious fringe theories, but submit to her wisdom.
There is no scenario where God is impotently tripping over His shoelaces trying to save everyone. On the one hand, this is unsettling, as it puts the mystery of iniquity before us. On the other, it should inspire confidence in us, because it means God’s power to save is infinite. Whether you are a Congruist or an Augustinian-Thomist, you maintain the principle points that man’s cooperation is necessary for salvation, but that God’s influence is necessary to secure man’s cooperation. Who will say that a hard heart can resist efficacious grace, when grace’s very nature is to soften the heart? Who can despair knowing that God has begun His work within them? It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from, or how awful the things you’ve done are: God can save you, period.
So, what important insights have these controversies taught us about grace? They clarify that grace is NOT an external suggestion contingent on man’s self-saving will, but is a divine impetus freely and indispensably given by God for salvation. Further, they clarify that grace is NOT impotent. God can transform the most hardened sinner into a martyr for the faith in an instant. This should give us unalterable confidence in God’s promises and our own ability to achieve sainthood. It should also encourage great humility – “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to accomplish” (Philippians 2:13). The worst sinner you know could, with one confession, outstrip you in holiness, despite your years of labor. Further, no matter how holy you are, it is only by grace, without which you are but a repugnant criminal.
Deifying Grace
Next, we will treat of the grace which resides within the soul. The primary disagreement is whether the grace in the soul is created or uncreated. Disagreements on this topic generally fall along the East/West fault line. First, I will discuss common ground, then these two different ideas, and then I will reason as to which is “more true.”
The Basic Concept
First, common ground. St. Athanasius wrote that “God became man so that man might become God.” This is the doctrine of divinization, or theosis. This does not mean that grace makes us consubstantial with the Father, part of the Holy Trinity. To dare suggest such a thing is, of course, a damnable blasphemy. What it does mean, however, is nonetheless so great one would blaspheme in daring to suggest it without the instruction of divine revelation: as God has a hypostatic union with man, man may have a hypostatic union with God. We are all potential vessels of the Holy Spirit; vessels in which the Spirit, by His dwelling, makes us deiform – participants in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4); a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). The fine points on how this works are the subject of the East-West debate.
The Essence-Energy Distinction and Uncreated Grace
First, the Eastern doctrine of “uncreated grace.” A 13th century Orthodox monk, Barlaam of Seminara, in criticizing the Latin Church’s position that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, claimed that univocal statements about God’s nature should be entirely abandoned, since His nature is not in any way demonstrable. Barlaam suggested that participation in God can only be through the mediation of created things – particularly study, which he argued was necessary for Christian perfection. He argued that the theophanies (the burning bush, the light of the transfiguration) were mere creaturely effects, not actually God. Gregory Palamas, a monk with a greater focus on inner stillness than learning, argued that Barlaam’s theory made the power of the Holy Spirit, “which transformed fishermen into Apostles,” into nothing. An Eastern synod agreed with Palamas that Barlaam was effectively elevating philosophy over the Holy Spirit and condemned his writings.
To explore Palamas’ argument against Barlaam, we must first understand his distinction between essence and energy. Essence is the “what-ness” of a thing, whereas the energies are the expression of that essence. So, for example: you cannot interact directly with fire’s essence, but you can interact with fire’s energies by standing near fire and enjoying the heat. Palamas argues that God is the same way – we can interact with His energies (grace), but not His essence. However, this does not turn God into a composite being; the same way heat is not “numerically separate” from fire’s essence, but connatural to it, really imparting the effect of fire’s distinct essence, so God’s energies (wisdom, justice, truth) emanate from Him and really are Him, not a composition or a medium. This real distinction protects God’s absolute transcendence while still allowing us to really participate in Him.
The Palamites reject the idea that we can interact with God’s essence in any way. From their perspective, that would require consubstantiality. Palamas refuses to even make apophatic claims about God’s essence – for example, he would not say something like “God’s essence is good.” Rather, he would say “God’s essence is beyond good and evil,” and even that would only be analogical. Palamas responded to the accusation that his teaching contradicted divine simplicity by saying – quite beautifully – that, “God is indivisibly divided and united divisibly, and experiences neither multiplicity nor composition.” This inaccessible transcendence means we cannot participate in God’s essence in Heaven, but rather participate in His uncreated energies more intimately.
Created Grace
Next, the Western doctrine of “created grace.” This was most comprehensively set forth by St. Thomas Aquinas. It is also the foundation of most Protestant theology surrounding sanctification. This doctrine holds to absolute divine simplicity, as opposed to Palamite simplicity with real distinction. Under the Thomistic system, one might view God as the “soul,” or animating principle, of reality. As the soul permeates every cell of the body without being contained by them, so God’s essence (which is existence) permeates all things, but as containing them, not as contained by them (Summa Q8, A3). The process of deification cannot involve God drawing closer to us, since omnipresence already entails perfect closeness. Rather, deification is a process whereby we draw closer to Him by some effect within us. Since we are creatures, all effects within us must also be creatures, and thus we have the term “created grace.”
St. Thomas teaches that sanctifying grace is an entitative habit within the soul which makes one pleasing to God. An entitative habit is an accident (not an essence) which changes one’s disposition. For example, gender is an entitative habit. We know being male is an accident, since one can be human without being male. However, the entitative habit of manhood modifies every operative expression of the human essence. It does this by giving one an interior desire and ability to know and achieve that which pertains to manhood. Sanctifying grace operates the same way. It gives one the interior desire and ability to know and achieve that which pertains to God. Sanctifying grace is, therefore: God’s own self-knowledge and self-love infused in us so that we may know and love Him.
But surely God’s own self-knowledge and self-love are uncreated? Indeed they are. Why, then, do we call sanctifying grace “created grace?” The reason we call sanctifying grace “created” is because our participation in it is created (Summa Q110, A2 R2). The entitative habit of manhood would exist even if this or that particular man didn’t exist; yet, the particular created expression of manhood in that man would not exist without him. Likewise, God’s own self-knowledge and self-love would exist even if this or that saint didn’t exist; yet, grace’s particular expression of God’s self-knowledge and self-love in that saint would not exist without him. Even the indwelling of the (obviously) uncreated Holy Spirit – which greatly strengthens the effects of sanctifying grace – is a created participation in the uncreated Spirit. As whiteness (essence) makes an object white (accident), sanctifying grace makes the soul Godly (Summa Q110, A2 R1).
Beatific Vision
The hottest debate with the East is on the subject of Heaven. St. Thomas suggests that Heaven is God replacing our discursive concept of Him with His actual essence. That is, instead of knowing a model, we know Him by direct intellection through a special grace (Summa Q12). It’s analogous to the difference between the way you know a frog and the way you know cause-and-effect. You know a frog by holding its species in the mind and considering frogness; you know cause-and-effect by direct, fundamental, intuitive vision. In this latter way we see God “face to face,” “as He is,” and “know [Him] fully, even as [we] are fully known [by Him]” (1 Cor 13:12, 1 John 3:2). This is unthinkable for many Palamites; it is only by drawing distinction between grace and created participation that Latins can suggest seeing God’s essence would not make one consubstantial.
Although all the blessed in Heaven see God face-to-face, they remain distinct in three ways. First, the degree of charity. The more love one has, the more intellectual light they will be given, and the more clearly they will see God (Summa Q12, A6). Since God’s mind is infinite, He can see Himself with perfect clarity. But the blessed are all finite, so they can never fully comprehend God (Summa Q92, A1-R2). Thus, they are distinct from God in their finitude, and distinct from each other in their understanding. Second, nature. Angels are distinct from each other in their unique angelic natures, and obviously distinct from humans. Third, accidents. We know, for example, that we will be men and women in Heaven, for the resurrected Christ was yet a man. Further, He had other unique accidents, such as the wounds of His hands, feet, and side.
The Errors of Strict Palamism
Now, I am of the persuasion that these views are actually completely reconcilable. I think that in many cases, Palamites and Thomists are saying the exact same thing using different systems. The main principles in both are clear: we experience God directly without mediation, yet without becoming consubstantial and without grasping His essence. We could, for example, posit that the beatific vision is an uncreated energy the blessed receive. However, I wish to advance the Thomistic concept for two reasons. The first is that the Palamite position can and (in modernity) often is formulated in an heretical fashion, explicitly denying the Beatific Vision. The second is that I find the Thomistic concept more precise, and thus more helpful, even if both are true. With that: the issues with the “strict” form of Palamism:
First, it unnecessarily puts God at a distance by making creation a patient upon which His energies act. It almost treats omnipresence as a footnote to a discussion about “really” experiencing God, and this is misleading. Creation is not a patient; creation exists ex nihilo. Everything is a “partaker in the divine nature,” which is existence (2 Peter). Deification cannot involve God becoming more present to us, because God is already omnipresent; “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Rather, it must refer to us becoming more present to Him. The sun shines over the whole earth; he who sees is he who opens his eyes. The best way to describe this reality is a created (that is, accidental) participation.
Second, it provides no explanation for the theophanies that the Thomist cannot provide, and actually raises more questions. For example, the Palamite would say God was really present in the burning bush by His uncreated energies. Sure; but how? If He was present in the physical sense, then we are positing “uncreated photons” which Moses would nevertheless only receive through the medium of his eyes. If God was present in the mystical sense, then He was presenting His light directly to Moses’ intellect – exactly the sort of thing the Thomist would suggest. And either way, would this experience of God’s energies not be a finite, created participation on Moses’ side?
Third, it contradicts the plain words of scripture by putting us at a distance from God’s essence in Heaven. “We see now through a glass in a dark manner, but then face to face” (1 Cor 13:12). “We shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2). “Show Thy face and we shall be saved” (Psalm 79:20). “Lord, show us the Father and we shall be satisfied” (John 14:8). “[The saints] will see His face” (Rev 22:4). “I shall behold your face in righteousness” (Psalm 17:15). “Come,’ my heart says, ‘seek his face!’ Your face, Lord, do I seek” (Psalm 27:8). Further, rejecting the Beatific Vision (the saints seeing God’s essence) is condemned. See Florence, Benedictus Deus, Mysitici Corporis, Allatae Sunt.
Fourth, Palamism emphasizes experience of God over desire for God. The Eastern system views interaction with the “uncreated light” as the pinnacle of theosis in this life. In the West, the emphasis is entirely on the growth of charity – that is, desire for God – not experience per se. The overarching thesis of St. John of the Cross’ works is, for example, that faith is complete darkness. This paradigm also emphasizes the true category difference between earth and heaven. On earth, we know God by the intuitive vision of faith, seeing Him only “darkly, as through glass.” In Heaven, faith is replaced by the Lumen Gloriae, the intuitive vision by which we see Him “as He is.” This attitude is normatively more conducive to proper asceticism and humility.
Conclusion
With all this said, we have a much clearer definition of what grace is and how grace works. I will briefly reiterate the previous discussions.
All goodness flows from God; this being the case, actual grace is necessary for even the least salutary act. We cannot entice God to give us grace when grace is the means by which we do anything worthwhile in the first place. God’s gift of grace is, thus, totally free and unmerited. Further, God’s grace is efficacious; it works in us “both to will and to accomplish.” Grace is not something due to us for our cooperation; grace is the cause of our cooperation. This should give us enormous confidence in God’s ability to transform us into saints. It should also give us great humility by exposing our poverty. To delve deeper into the fine points of actual grace and predestination, see here.
There is, aside from operative grace, grace which dwells in the soul and makes us deiform. That is, the grace in the soul makes us into “little gods.” This grace is an entitative habit, a quality which disposes the soul towards God and makes it pleasing to Him. It is God’s own self-knowledge and self-love given to us so that we can know and love Him. Of course, God’s own self-knowledge and self-love are uncreated, but our participation in them is created. This participation culminates in Heaven, where the saint’s mind sees God by a direct act, though without the infinite, complete comprehension by which God understands Himself.