The Effects of the Fall upon the Observance of the Natural Law (Article by Hugon with Some Brief Notes)
Brief Translator’s Introduction
I am here presenting this article, along with Fr. Hugon’s “The Salvation of Pagans” as a testimony to several points in the Thomist tradition at the turn of the century.
1˚ I believe that the article shows a point of nuance regarding questions of nature and grace. It bears witness to the presence of resources opposed to the critiques of those who held that it was a universal position that Thomists believed that a “pure nature” would remain unaffected by the fall, as though a kind of pagan-humanist felicity were possible in a state of mortal sin. There are a number of other thinkers that corroborate this fact. Hugon has the signal advantage of being a rather conservative figure writing from Rome at the turn of the century. That makes his concessions telling and shows that one must be very careful with narratives about “scholastics.” It is helpful to read this article alongside Garrigou-Lagrange’s “De Principio Quasi in Oblivionem Delapso: Aversio a fine supernaturali existere nequit sine aversion a fine naturali,” translated (with all of its punch) as, “Whether Aversion from the Supernatural End Cannot Exist Without Aversion from the Natural End,” in the Grace volume translated by the sisters in Menlo Park (p. 504–506). He also makes reference, without detailed citations, to the Thomist tradition.
2˚ This text also is a kind of confirmatur for the position concerning the state of the acquired moral virtues in a person who is in a state of mortal sin. This topic elicited debates a few decades ago (e.g. Shanley, Knobel, et al.). I believe, here, Maritain and Garrigou-Lagrange (who are harmonious with the points made by Hugon, though they parse the questions of infused and acquired virtue more carefully, I think) articulate the true position. See Garrigou-Lagrange, Three Ages of the Interior Life, vol. 1, p. 58–59; “The Instability of the Acquired Moral Virtues in the State of Mortal Sin,” in Philosophizing in Faith, p. 171ff; Maritain, Science and Wisdom, trans. Bernard Wall (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1944), 224–5; An Essay on Christian Philosophy, trans. Edward H. Flannery (New York: Philosophical Library, 1995), pp. 100–101, n. 5. also see Thomas M. Osborne, “Perfect and Imperfect Virtues in Aquinas,” The Thomist, Vol. 71 (2007): 49–64.
3˚ The article presented here also provides a point of reference regarding the questions of implicit and explicit faith as needed for the classic case of one “born in the wild.” I have mentioned elsewhere my preferences for significant portions of Maritain’s “The Immanent Dialectic of the First Act of Freedom” in the Range of Reason (echoed also in his An Introduction to the Basic Problems of Moral Philosophy and developed in Journet, Nicolas, and others). And one should also consult Garrigou-Lagrange, “The Grace of Christ and Mystics Outside the Church” in Our Savior and His Love for Us (p. 355ff). Still, it’s always good to see exactly how certain figures were treating these questions. (One can consult Fr. Lusvardi’s Baptism of Desire and Christian Salvation, Fenton’s The Catholic Church And Salvation, Hugon’s own Hors de l'Eglise point de salut?, and with more caution, Fr. Sullivan’s Salvation Outside the Church: Tracing the History of the Catholic Response. For slightly dated but useful further citations from well-known debates in the 20th century, see J-H Nicolas, Catholic Theology: A Synthesis, vol. 3, p. 113ff. It should also be supplemented by what Maritain has to say regarding “primitive” man in Loi naturelle ou loi non écrite, “Sign and Symbol,” and in the article published by Raïssa but clearly bearing the stamp of Jacques, “Abraham and the Ascent of Conscience.” The theme comes up elsewhere in his oeuvre, but this will suffice to get the reader started!)
4˚ And, it must be admitted, also, that this pushes against a view of human life that would be a kind of secularized humanist paganism—which, I believe, even many Thomists are not immune from. There is a reason why some contemporary discussions concerning the infused moral virtues have, perhaps, overemphasized the infused moral virtues to the point of totally denying the existence of the acquired moral virtues in the souls of the redeemed: many Thomists speak of the moral virtues as though they were primarily Aristotelian, with a minor Christian gilding. I think that this is a real tendency, especially as I view things from the perspective of the East. The Orthodox are often unfair in their characterizations of Western theology, but they are not wrong to note a certain naturalizing tendency. To this end, too, Fr. de Lubac was perhaps at least directionally correct in certain aspects of his narratives concerning atheistic humanism, although in a kind of impressionistic way that does not always read the scholastic tradition correctly and is, in many ways, guided by Blondellian concerns. But, in any event, I don’t wish to litigate that particular matter… Rather, I wish to acknowledge that the deep and cultured encounter with pagan wisdom—yes, in the 13th century but above all in the renaissance—left a deep mark upon the Western Christian imagination. (Various authors have observed this. On my mind as I write this are sound observations by Bouyer, who is often directionally right, though not always quite accurate it must be admitted, when discussing the post-Tridentine Church.) Many well-meaning Christians live lives as though our vocation were only modally supernatural. Likewise, many do not realize just how deeply our nature itself has been affected—not corrupted but deeply affected—by being turned away from its supernatural end.1
Fr. Hugon’s Article
I. Exaggerations
We are a long way from the days when the Church needed to defend the rights of nature against schools of thought that exaggerated the need for the supernatural. The Predestinarians and Protestants declared that all of man’s acts which are not predestined are evil. Baius strove to gain acceptance for a mitigated Lutheranism: according to him, faith and charity are so indispensable for doing good that all that does not proceed from them is dead from the start; all the virtues of philosophers would be vices and all the acts of sinners new faults committed by them. Jansen, Quesnel, and the innovators of Pistoia, without absolutely requiring the state of grace for morally upright deeds, at least required that the virtue of faith be present—meaning that all the acts of unbelievers would be sins.
The Church avenged nature, so misunderstood and despised by such thinkers. It is a De fide truth that the state of grace and charity is not required to perform certain good works. The Council of Trent defined that acts which prepare for justification done without the impulse of sanctifying grace are not sins and do not call for God’s wrath.2 The Popes condemned these such despairing doctrines holding that everything the sinner or the servant of sin does is sin.3 What remains for the soul that has committed [mortal] sin but a kind of general impotence in all good works? Without the grace of Him who frees mankind, the sinner would be free to do evil; without it, we would love nothing but our own condemnation. There would only be charity that speaks to God and that God rewards. The prayer of the ungodly would be nothing other than a new sin.4—Thus, without charity, declares the Church, we retain the freedom to perform acts that are not guilty, acts which God heeds and even rewards in a certain way; and we can have legitimate affections.
Moreover, common sense protests against these enormities and suffices to refute them. Although sin diminishes our energies, it does not remove our powers, any more than it removes our obligation to observe the commandments, to pay our debts, and to honor our parents. Acts that spring from a natural faculty cannot be poisoned at their source, especially when God commands us to produce them and Himself crowns them. Now, the Lord calls sinners to prayer, penance, and promises forgiveness in response to these acts;5 He justifies the publican because of his supplications, humility, and ardent contrition.6
It is not possible that all goodness would be annihilated in the sinner. Just as the righteous person, without losing the state of grace, almost infallibly allows himself go fall into venial negligence, so too the life of the most perverse man cannot lack certain good works which are the easy and spontaneous fruit of a native moral uprightness and which, with the love of happiness and a natural propensity for the good, remain within us as the last reflections of the image of God.7
This condemns the theory of the two dominant cupidities invented by Jansenism: either love of self, which corrupts all our actions; or love of God, which makes fruitful all that germinates under its inspiration.8
Catholic doctrine goes further, proclaiming that the virtue of faith itself is not absolutely necessary for every morally befitting deed. God Himself takes pleasure in inciting unbelievers to deeds for which He praises them; He praises Cyrus through the mouth of the prophet: “You are my shepherd, you will fulfill all my wills.”9 He grants the Romans empire over the world, says the author of the City of God, in order to reward them for their natural virtues, though they be mingled with many defects.10 Even in men who have not yet received the light of Christ and who are numbered among the ungodly, Saint Augustine recognizes certain actions that justice forbids us to blame and commands us to praise, although the motive that inspires them rarely evades criticism.11 Without a doubt, the holy doctor argued vigorously against the Pelagian Julian of Eclanum that the pagans were not truly just, that their virtues were not complete, that their actions, lacking the ultimate perfection, could be called defective, peccata. However, he does not dispute their morally befitting works, which were, moreover, a gift from God, for the Lord does not refuse His help to the unfaithful and uses for good even those who are evil.12
It is clear that unbelief has not extinguished our natural faculties and that, of their own accord, they give rise to certain easily performed acts, their fruit and their crown. These deeds are so spontaneous that circumstances cannot universally vitiate them; their end is inherently morally fitting and implicitly relates to God. Here, we see the infallible homage nature offers to its Creator. How could so many powerful minds in the seventeenth century fail to see how monstrous their assertions were when they claimed that the pagan, in greeting his friends and venerating his parents, was committing so many mortal sins!
This was an outrage against common sense, which the Church did not fail to repress. Therefore, she proscribed the following propositions: All the works of unbelievers are sins; the virtues of philosophers are vices;13 by a kind of fatal necessity the unbeliever sins in all his acts; everything that does not proceed from the supernatural faith that operates through charity is a sin;14 without the light of faith, without Christ, without charity, what can we be but darkness, aberration and sin?15 Since the Holy See has only issued a blanket condemnation of the various propositions of Baius and the Jansenists, without attaching to each of them the censure of heresy, the opposing doctrine we are recalling here is not absolutely De fide; but it is indisputable, and one would be guilty of grave temerity were one to contest it.
Finally, it is the common sentiment of contemporary theologians—a true conclusion, although not binding on Catholic belief—that man can do some good without any supernatural grace, with the ordinary assistance of Providence. Undoubtedly, the First Cause must intervene in all our free acts, aiding us with His immediate influence: it is under a special, physical, effective motion that every good deed is accomplished.16
This aid can be called grace in a broad sense, since it is free and not granted to everyone; and this is how we should explain the expressions of some ancient Thomists who require grace, i.e. God’s intervention, for every good work.17 What we maintain is that there is no need for a grace of the supernatural order.
We have already mentioned some very easy deeds, whose objects, circumstances, and end are inherently morally fitting, which nothing seems to vitiate, which rise of their own accord towards God, because they are the spontaneous homage of our being to the Creator. Our faculties obviously remain capable of this small effort, if they are not completely extinguished.
Here too, the Church has made her sentiment clear by condemning these propositions: free will without grace is capable of nothing but sin; it is Pelagian to recognize a natural good, that is, one that draws its origin from the powers of nature;18 without grace, we can only love for our own condemnation.19 So it is true that without any grace, and with only its natural energies, the will is capable of acts that are not faults and of a love that is not blameworthy. Pius VI, by condemning as false the 24th proposition of the Synod of Pistoia, teaches that there are legitimate affections that arise from nature alone, praiseworthy in themselves, authentic traits of the image of God in us. The Council of Cologne in 1860 (approved by the Holy See) confesses that fallen man can accomplish certain morally fitting works with the forces of nature alone.
This, in brief, is the history of these exaggerations: Predestinarianism and Protestantism demanding faith, justice, and predestination for every good work; Baianism, requiring faith and charity; Jansenism, requiring at least faith; and false Augutinianism, requiring at least present grace.
It is a matter of faith that predestination is not required for the accomplishment of even excellent works, since it is defined that the just whose actions are pleasing to God can be damned. It is a matter of faith that the state of grace and charity is not necessary to perform morally befitting works It is certain that faith is not required either. And it is a common and now undisputed doctrine that even actual grace is not always necessary to do some good deed.
In our own days, these excesses are no longer to be feared, for Jansenism is definitively dead. Rather, all around us Pelagianism is exerting its influence anew, and its infiltrations are no less pernicious than those of Kantism or Protestantism. Many seem to ignore the effects of our original fall, man’s inborn moral goodness is extolled to excess, human means alone are deemed sufficient to reform individuals and societies, and all about us men disregard the supernatural, despite the fact that we must, rather, ceaselessly draw upon this order of things if we are to have life. Thomism’s teachings concerning the necessity of grace, even to be a morally fitting man, have not lost their topicality. These subjects remain live questions in our present day.
II. The Necessity of Grace for the Full Observance of the Natural Law
It is a doctrine considered certain today—whatever many theologians may have written in the past—that, without grace, fallen man is incapable of observing the whole of natural law. The Church has not expressly defined this, but this conclusion obviously follows from the quite categorical assertions of Scripture, the Fathers and the Councils. With unparalleled, tragic eloquence, Saint Paul described this impotence on man’s part.20 He presents it as representing two conflicting laws: the law of the spirit, which the inner man approves of and delights in, and the law of his members, which delights the flesh, makes us slaves to sin, and leads us like a flock that has been sold off. We live under this tyranny, sin dwells within us, and we cannot find within ourselves the means to fulfill our duty. The Apostle is obviously referring to natural moral precepts, for he contrasts concupiscence to them: concupiscence is not precisely in conflict with the rules of the supernatural order but, rather, with the commandments of the Decalogue.21 This natural good, which he would like to perform, he does not realize; this complete practice of the decalogue, he does not achieve; and this cursed law of the flesh, which he hates, he undergoes in spite of himself. So what does he need to free himself from this slavery? He appeals to God and proclaims that this triumph can only be assured by divine grace.22
Saint Augustine frequently returned to this painful observation. His books De spiritu et Littera, Gratia Christi, and Libero Arbitrio were written to prove to the Pelagians that one cannot be an entirely upright man without the grace of Jesus Christ. “There are ten commandments,” he repeats elsewhere, “and no one by his own strength, without the grace of Jesus Christ, succeeds in observing them.”23
In 415, the Council of Carthage condemned the Pelagians for saying that “man can by his will alone fulfill the law of God, either that which is engraved naturally in our hearts, or that which is written in the holy letters.”24 The Plenary Council of 418, approved by Pope Zosimus, anathematizes all those who maintain that “the grace of justification is given us only to observe the commandments with greater ease, as if free will alone and without grace could fulfill them, albeit with pain and difficulty.”25 The term “commandments of God” in the language of tradition refers not only to the revealed law, but also to the decalogue, or, as the previous synod said, to the law, whether natural or written. Therefore, these two councils declare that the grace of Jesus Christ is necessary also for the observance of the Decalogue. And indeed, the reason for this necessity is drawn, not from the notion of the supernatural, but from our original fall, which was the particular concern for the bishops gathered at these famous assemblies.
The 2nd Council of Orange26 and the Council of Trent27 repeat that, as a result of the first fall our free will is inclined towards evil and diminished in its energies for good (inclinatum et attenuatum). We are crippled and wounded (infirmatum, et laesum);28 Adam’s transgression has produced a blemish in humanity both for the soul and the body (secundum corpus et animam in deterius commutatum fuisse).29
A wounded man, a cripple, may try to take a few steps, to make some movements that require little effort, but if they try to run the vigorous man’s race, they will never succeed. Indeed, they do not even aspire to it. The integral practice of natural law is the perfect work, the supreme race, which demands full strength from the healthy soul. Fallen man, with the wounds borne by his free will, with his limping gait, will never reach this lofty goal.30
We have to face the facts here, and proclaim with all theologians the necessity of grace. Our sorrowful, daily experience speaks louder than all our proofs: if our Christian brethren, despite the many aids they have at their disposal, have so much difficulty in preserving themselves from lamentable downfalls, what will become of man left to his own devices and with only his own resources? All we need to do is read the history of paganism: there, we see the tale of poor humanity gone astray, exhausted, gasping for breath and yet obliged to continue its race towards death. It needs a remedy.
By what name shall we designate this grace? In itself, and considering only the object of the precepts, a natural intervention would suffice. Since such deeds are natural, the aid that enables us to perform them could be of the same order. Some theologians, including Suárez, Mazzella, and Hurter, are satisfied with a medicinal grace that is indeed gratuitous, though not supernatural. Thomists, on the other hand, take a less narrow view of the question, and make recourse to deeper principles in order to resolve it. We must consider not only the object of the precepts but, moreover, a whole host of elements that must be taken into account: the state in which man is called to the supernatural, the inner change, the radical and lasting conversion that must take place within him if he is to be able to observe the whole law for long. This universal renewal that heals us, this general and permanent rectitude, is inconceivable without sanctifying grace.
What, indeed, does Saint Paul call for, to deliver us from the tyranny of our members and enable us to follow the rule of the spirit? To the eyes of the great Apostle, wouldn’t the medicinal and natural grace spoken of by the other school seem insufficient, not to say a little petty? He needs a grace which is truly divine, which comes through Jesus Christ, which reforms us entirely according to the image of the new Adam and makes us children of God—in a word, the grace of justification. This is indeed what the African councils mentioned above demand for the observance of the law, whether natural or written: gratiam justificationis. Saint Thomas was not mistaken: medicinal grace, the principle of our healing and health, is sanctifying grace, and without it man finds it impossible to preserve himself from all sin: “In the state of corrupt nature man lacks the habitual grace that heals nature (gratia habituli sanante naturam) in order to abstain from all sin.”31
To practice the natural law without fail, we need to be habitually well-disposed, to have a stable orientation towards the good, and to enjoy vigorous and permanent moral health. If our good will is only temporary, if our ordinary state is infirmity, how can we long perform the work of the strong, namely the total observance of the commandments? The much-vaunted medicinal grace, because it is only a transitory aid, does not suffice for regulating an entire life. It may give us a boost, without, however, preventing nature from returning to itself. It may indeed arouse our sick faculties, though without curing them or giving them lasting energies. Yes, the aid that makes us capable of practicing the law, the whole law, must be a permanent gift, operating in us a kind of resurrection, regeneration, and interior renewal—consequently, it must be sanctifying grace.
Another consideration can lead us to the same conclusion. The man who is faithful to the Ten Commandments is perfect from the natural perspective. And how could the Creator demand more of him in this sphere? The servant, having carried out all that his Master wills, must be sovereignly pleasing to Him, and God must cherish and reward him. However, because in our present state of divine elevation the natural order and the supernatural order are inseparable though distinct, it is inadmissible that we should be at the same time God’s friend in one order and His enemy in the other, at once converted to Him and perverse. In other words, how could the Lord love and crown us as the Author of nature, while dethroning and condemning us as the Author of grace? This upright man, obeying all the prescriptions of the Decalogue, who is entirely turned towards his Creator, could not live forever distant from his Redeemer. No, this upright man must be oriented towards his twofold destiny, and this rectitude is the work of justification.
Thus, we have the necessary corollaries and complements to this thesis: the necessity of this same grace in order to avoid mortal sin for a long period of time, as well as to resist violent temptations. Scripture exhorts us to pray unceasingly so as not to succumb to temptation. Yet, prayer would be superfluous if success depended solely on us. Pope St. Celestine, in his letter to the bishops of Gaul, expressly states that this victory requires God’s continual assistance: it is only had through God’s daily assistance (nisi per quotidianum adjutorium Dei).32 “In the struggle with the flesh, the world and the devil,” adds the Council of Trent, “we can only triumph by the grace of God (in qua victores esse non possunt nisi cum Dei gratia).”33
We wish, moreover, to clarify this language and state, with the Thomist tradition: habitual grace is required. When we are strong enough to avoid mortal sin for a long time and to overcome temptation, our heart and will are so highly and effectively attached to God that we prefer to suffer everything rather than separate ourselves from the sovereign Good—and nothing is capable of shaking us, neither the lure of the most seductive benefits, nor the fear of the greatest damage, nor the threats of tyrants, nor the very ruin of the universe. A soul thus fixed in its duty habitually adheres to its supernatural end, and this close and lasting adherence is nothing other than the state of grace and charity.
By contrast, the sinner, habitually turned away from God, rests his love upon creatures and places his supreme ideal in the corruptible good. It is an axiom, proven by experience, that man, especially when he is caught unawares, almost infallibly acts according to the ordinary end he has chosen for himself, according to his inclinations, affinities, dispositions, and habits, which have become second nature, just as a ship left to its own devices sails where the winds and its own rudder take it.34 The soul in a state of mortal sin, driven towards evil, will very frequently be carried adrift, especially if storm winds are violent. To enable it to avoid serious faults, we must change its course—and sanctifying grace is what turns the soul towards its true destiny.
Saint Thomas illuminates this doctrine with an interesting analogy.35 When the lower appetite is not entirely subjugated to reason, it is morally impossible for us to suppress all the disordered movements of concupiscence: the just man may well, on occasion, guard himself against these surprises. However, because he does not always remain alert, he will many times suffer these resistances, which are a sad consequence of the original fall. Exemption from all venial sin for an entire lifetime is not conceivable without someone receiving a notable privilege, such as that granted to the Blessed Virgin.36 In the same way, when the intellect and will are not under God’s yoke, one will frequently experience serious disorders. The sinner may sometimes be able to reason with himself and avoid a few falls. But, unable to swim upstream against the current of his nature, he will follow the habits that tyrannize him. Hence, once again, the need for restorative grace, which is sanctifying grace: Reparetur per gratiam justificantem.37
Moral theologians have tried to specify how long a sinner can go on without falling into new serious sins. Some say a year, others a few months, others a month or several weeks. We need not follow them in these details. It is hardly possible to rigorously determine such a complex and variable matter, where circumstances, occasions, and temperaments must be taken into account. Nonetheless, with the saints themselves,38 we believe that it will never take very long. In the ordinary conditions of life and given the corruption of our humanity, temptations are inevitable: what will a soul do in the midst of the storm when it is already inclined towards the abyss?
It will be very difficult for him not to repeat his false steps, just as a damaged vessel, which has no anchor to hold it, does not remain long without being carried adrift. According to Saint Gregory the Great, a fault that is not immediately erased by penance leads, by its own weight, to further downfalls: it is either a sin, or the cause of a sin, or the penalty of a sin, or all three at once.39
Therefore, we must pity those unfortunate souls who spend long years, not to say almost all their lives, in a state of mortal sin, without the sacraments, without confession, and without contrition! Vainly do we try to adorn ourselves with moral perfections; wrongly do we claim that we remain upright men while dispensing with the supernatural. No, no man deserves to be called virtuous if he is unfaithful to any prescription of the decalogue. Since full observance of the commandments presupposes justification, one must belong, by sanctifying grace, to the soul of the Church40 in order to be an upright man in the full sense demanded by this noble title.
III. Necessity of grace for the observance of the first commandment of natural law, the love of God above all things.
We have established two fundamental principles. Against the Pelagians, we have man’s moral incapacity for observing all the commandments without divine assistance. Against Baius and Jansenists, we have the possibility that the sinner and pagan may practice certain points of the moral law, honor parents, respect the life, and purse of his neighbor, etc. But do our powers go far enough, and without grace, can we fulfill the first and greatest of all precepts, that of love? First of all, it is clear that we are not talking about charity, which is essentially supernatural. It also goes without saying that a man in the state of integral nature could have loved God sovereignly without any extraordinary assistance. With his unsullied nature moving of its own accord towards perfection, his healthy and vigorous faculties would have produced exquisite acts with ease and gracefulness. It is also certain that even fallen man can have a vague and ineffectual love for his Creator, sincere impulses which do not, however, translate into practice, and which do not go so far as to do the Master’s will in all things. This sentiment is a need of the heart and nature’s spontaneous homage to its Author. If we can say, with Tertullian,41 that the cry of a naturally Christian soul is to exclaim, “My God!”, we can repeat with just as much truth that the first movement of a soul made by God and for God, its first glance, is an aspiration towards its Creator, an act of love.
We also take it to be settled that an effective perfect love, which consists in the complete observance of the divine law, is not possible without grace. This is the very thesis we just demonstrated above.
It is an inner disposition of benevolence and joyful acceptance, not mere wishful thinking, not a vague and conditional desire, but an attachment so sincere that we prefer the Creator to all things, with the firm and absolute intention of pleasing Him in all things and always, and that of avoiding, as the greatest evil, anything that might separate us from Him.
Can this excellent act be the product of our natural energies? Scotus, Durandus, Cajetan, Molina, Mazzella, and Hurter, answer affirmatively, and each of them expounds his particular theory with nuances that we can scarcely point out here. Suarez and Bellarmin admit a gratuitous help, though of a natural order. Most Thomists claim a supernatural grace and even sanctifying grace.
This last sentiment will be ours, because it is that of the great doctors of grace, Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas. “The enormity of original sin”" says the Bishop of Hippo, “caused our free will to lose the power to love God.”42 We are not here speaking of divine charity, for before the fall our free will did not have this essentially supernatural love within its own power. What it did have—and therefore what it has lost—is the natural power to love God above all else. Consequently, until original sin is erased by justification, our freedom remains impotent.
Let us now hear the testimony of St. Thomas: “In the state of integral nature, man did not need the gift of grace to love God naturally above all else. He did, however, need the divine motion to put it into action. In his fallen state, in order to love God, man needs the restorative grace that heals nature.”43 For Saint Thomas, the grace that heals is sanctifying grace: gratia habituali sanante naturam.44
Some have said that the Angelic Doctor is here speaking of efficacious love, i.e. the integral practice of the commandments, which indeed requires the help of medicinal grace.
This is a vain objection: Saint Thomas examines this question of effective love in the subsequent article. Therefore, unless we impute to the prince of theologians a repetition and a tautology, we must recognize that this third article (of ST I-II, q. 109) deals solely with affective love.
There are good reasons, moreover, for adopting this teaching. We have already recalled the fundamental principle that a crippled and injured faculty will never achieve the perfect act of healthy nature: to claim this would be to deny the very hypothesis of illness. The noblest act of a generous will is love of God above all else. As in the supernatural order, there is nothing more excellent than charity, that divine perfection which is the summary of the law, the first and last word of all the commandments, primum mandatum,45 finis praecepti est charitas.46 Thus, in the natural order, the most exquisite act, the supreme and sublime product of our heart and will, is to love of God above all things.
Let none object: the finished and perfect work is the observance of the whole law. The practice of the commandments is not one act, but a series of acts, all of which derive from divine love. In each of the precepts love is renewed, in all our virtuous deeds love is repeated, so that it inspires them all, begets them all, and ensures their efficacy and fruitfulness. As the principle and terminus of all our good works, it is therefore itself the exquisite and final product of the truly vigorous faculty. Let us not expect it of fallen man.
And, with Saint Basil, we can say that this great commandment, even though it seems unique, contains within itself the virtue of all the others: Ejus vi et efficacia mandatum quodvis perfici ac comprehendi.47
Anyone who succeeds in making a perfect act of love in the affective order must have the firm resolve to observe the whole law, with the very real intention of avoiding any serious fault. Now, the sincerity of a desire is measured by the possibility of its execution, and our resolutions are not genuine if the object is beyond our reach. When we have made a clear decision, when we have ardently desired something, we can and sometimes do put it into practice. If man never realizes, and cannot even realize without grace, his intention to always please God and never offend him, this is proof that this firm intention does not exist without grace. Yes, this natural love, even affective but sincere and complete, is a gift from God.
At first sight, we might be tempted to believe that this free help could belong to the order of nature, like the object of the precept itself. And, here again, as we have said, many theologians are content with medicinal grace [of this purely natural sort]. However, if we take into account the various considerations we have put forward with regard to the commandments, we will recognize the necessity of sanctifying grace. In producing the act of sovereign love, the soul has given itself entirely to God, preferring Him to all things, committing itself to suffer everything rather than separate itself from Him. These dispositions imply that the soul is definitively detached from all sinful affections and, therefore, entirely turned towards God. Do we need more for conversion and justification?
All this is incompatible with mortal sin. What, in fact, is the condition of a soul in a state of sin? In short: a general and permanent orientation towards corruptible good, so that created goods are preferred to God. What is the soul’s disposition when it brings forth from its will an act of perfect love for Him (even merely in the order of nature)? In short: a general orientation towards God, so that God is preferred to all things. Again, what more do we need for a generous conversion?
We have already explained how, in the present state of our humanity, an indissoluble bond unites the natural order to the supernatural, and how it is contradictory to speak of man being converted in the one and perverse in the other. Hence, there is the incompatibility between perfect natural love, which prefers God to all things, and mortal sin, by which man prefers something to God. We must necessarily belong either to the city of the righteous, whose motto is, “Love God to the point of contempt of self,” or to the city of the wicked, whose banner reads, “Love yourself to the point of contempt for God.”48 Undoubtedly, we must recognize that the sinner performs morally upright acts, which are neither divine love nor sin, and it is in this sense that we must reject the Jansenist theory of the two dominant cupidities. However, there is no middle ground between this state of soul where God is preferred to all things and the state where something is preferred to God. The man who has made the act of sovereign love is no longer in the slavery where the creature is preferred to the Creator. He has therefore entered the kingdom of the just, and lives by sanctifying grace.
To doubt this conclusion, one must not have considered the distance, opposition, and abyss that exists between the mortal sinner and the sovereign Good. The guilty man feels too keenly that he is not suited to God and that God is not suited to him. Hence, he experiences this fear, this profound terror, which drives him to flee and hide before his judge, like Adam after his disobedience, “I was afraid, so I hid.” The longer this state endures, so too does his dread increase and lead to a kind of invincible horror of God. Yet, one believes that such a will, without having corrected its general perversity, will suddenly approach the Creator as its most pleasant and desired object, through the act of perfect love? No, no, this is not admissible. If terror has disappeared, if God has become so dear, this is proof that the state of the soul has changed, that mortal sin has been erased by justification.
However, here is a serious objection that seems to overturn our thesis: When a child born of unfaithful parents and raised far from any communication with Christianity reaches the age of reason, it is obliged, and therefore has the power, to make an act of love towards God, its principle and ultimate end. However, at this first moment of his rational life, he has not been able to receive sanctifying grace, for justification, according to the Thomists, presupposes explicit faith in the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation, a knowledge that has not yet been acquired or demanded. The act of love can therefore take place without sanctifying grace.
It is not a physical instant that is assigned to the child for the fulfillment of this duty, but a more or less long period, embracing a whole series of acts. The precept of perfect love does not oblige at the first moment, because it is not possible. Love is measured by knowledge, and as the child can only know God in a vague way at the outset, only implicit and general love is required from him, and in the very resolution he forms to practice good and avoid evil, he implicitly chooses God. This act does not suffice to justify him but, rather, to satisfy the fundamental commandment that obliges all free creatures to take God as their final end. The precept is proportionate to the capacities of the subject: it is general and vague when the intelligence can only have an indeterminate knowledge; precise and definite, when man has become capable of a clear and explicit knowledge. By virtue of this first, still obscure choice, the child is oriented towards God, without being completely turned towards Him. Providence owes it to itself to provide him with the present graces of illumination and inspiration with which he can produce salutary acts and thus prepare himself for justification. If the soul does not hinder this, God will provide it with knowledge of the mysteries, either through interior revelation or through the ministry of creatures, according to the merciful process we explained in another article.49 What is certain is that the explicit precept of perfect love will only be binding when knowledge is clear and explicit to the same degree; and then the child will have become capable of receiving justification.
Thus, the difficulty is not so formidable. We do not require sanctifying grace for the vague, general act of love that suffices at the beginning of our rational life. However, we do believe it is necessary for the explicit, sovereign love that is required of adults. Our proof stands: natural, perfect love, which includes the firm and absolute intention never to offend God, which prefers God to all things, is incompatible with mortal sin, which prefers something to God. Therefore, whoever has performed this act is already justified by habitual grace.
From this general powerlessness of man with regard to doing good emerges a very important conclusion—one that should be meditated upon at length by all who labor for the renewal of society. Certainly, praise is due to the brave youth who, in order to better reach the people of our day, draws upon all the resources of civilization and all the aspirations of the modern soul. However, let it be carefully remembered that the restoration of humanity will take place—as His Holiness Pius X eloquently reminded us—only through Our Lord Jesus Christ: Instaurare omnia in Christo (“to restore all things in Christ”).50 Since our nature can only be healed by supernatural grace, life for societies and individuals will only come from the Redeemer. Salvation is not of this world. Salvation is a reality both divine and human, a reality that we love and adore, a reality whose name is sweet honey upon our lips, a melody to our ears, and a thrill to our hearts.51 Salvation has a name: Jesus!
It's all very well for modern science to glorify in its accomplishments and for the wise to question themselves, to assemble, to hold congresses. Peoples will continue to tremble, and humanity will hasten its march towards death until Jesus is found. Our hope, our deliverance, our life lies in the grace He has earned for us: “The Grace of God through Jesus Christ.”.52 Salvation, repeats Pius X, is found nowhere else than in Christ, “for there is no other name under heaven given to men, in which we must be saved”.53 Therefore, it is necessary that we return to Him, prostrate ourselves at His feet, and gather from His divine mouth the words of eternal life—for only He can teach the path capable of leading us back to salvation, only He can teach what is true, only He can call us back to life, He who said of Himself: “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.”54 A new attempt was made to deal with the affairs of the world apart from Christ. The building began by rejecting the cornerstone. Once upon a time, Peter reproached those who crucified Jesus. And now, a second time, the mass of the edifice has collapsed, shattering the heads of the builders. Despite everything, Jesus remains the cornerstone of human society, and once again justifies the maxim: “There is no salvation except in Him.”55
I thank my research assistant Mitchell Kengor for helping me to prep this translation.↩︎
Sess. VI, can. 7.↩︎
Proposit. 35 damn. in Baio, Oct. 1, 1567.↩︎
Cf. propos. 1, 38, 40, 54, 55, 56, 57 damn. in Quesnel., Sept. 8, 1713.↩︎
Is. 1:16–18; Jer. 3:12–14; Zach. 1:3; Sir. 21:1.↩︎
Lk. 18:13.↩︎
Augustine, De Spiritu et Littera, ch. 28 (P. L., XLIV, 230).↩︎
Prop. 44-48 against Quesnel, and prop. 23 against the synod Pistoia. “Between divine charity, which leads us to the heavenly kingdom, and guilty human love there is room,” says St. Augustine, “for a licit human love, which we cannot condemn” (Sermo, 349, P. L., XXXIX, 1530.)↩︎
Is. 44:28.↩︎
Augustine, De Civitate Dei, bk. 5, c. 12, (P. L., XLI, 154-158).↩︎
Augustine, De Spiritu et Littera, ch. 25 (P. L., XLIV, 229-230_↩︎
Cf. Contra Julianum, bk. 4 (P. L., XLIV, 137ff).↩︎
Prop. 25 against Baius.↩︎
Props. 8 and 11 condemned by Alexander VIII, Dec. 7, 1690.↩︎
Prop. 48 against Quesnel.↩︎
ST I-II, q. 109, a. 2.↩︎
Cf. Neveu’s article in Divus Thomas (May 1905): 239ff.↩︎
Props. 27 and 37 against Baius.↩︎
Prop. 40 against Quesnel.↩︎
Rom. 8:14–25. Does the Apostle have fallen man in mind, or man already repaired? It makes no difference for our thesis: the necessity of grace for the full observance of the natural law is clearly affirmed in this famous passage.↩︎
Translator’s note: Here we see a point that is recurrent in the Fathers and in Thomas Aquinas himself, namely that there is a kind of overlap between the Decalogue and the Natural Law, noting that the former does add determination to the question concerning the worship of God (on the Sabbath). It should be noted, however, that the supernatural life is—whether in the Old Law or, above all, the New—infinitely more elevated than the Natural Law. (Hence, in part, the Thomist insistence on the need for the infused moral virtues to serve the theological virtues.)↩︎
Whether we adopt the Vulgate reading for verse 25 “ The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord”, or the Greek reading, “I give thanks to God through Jesus Christ Our Lord,” “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ Our Lord,” the meaning is basically the same: the whole passage demonstrates that we need the grace merited and conferred by Jesus Christ to do good. On this, Cornley remarks: "The meaning of the three readings, however, is the same. For in giving thanks to God through Jesus Christ, he teaches that the Jews can be—or already have been—delivered by the grace of God alone, merited by Christ and bestowed by Him, from the body of this death and from the captivity into which they had been led by sin, aroused through the Law; and this is what the Latin reading alone expresses explicitly.”↩︎
Augustine, Serm. 248, ch. 4 and 5(P. L., XXXVIII, 1160)↩︎
P. L., XX, 565-566.↩︎
Denzinger, no. 227[105]↩︎
Can. 25, Denzinger, no 395 [198].↩︎
Trent, Decree on Justification, ch. 1.↩︎
Orange II, can. 8, Denzinger, no. 378 [181].↩︎
Trent, Decree on Original Sin, can. 1.↩︎
Cf. ST I-II, q. 109, a. 4.↩︎
See ST I-II, q. 109, a. 8. Also see a. 7 ad 2. Neveu, in his article in Divus Thomas (May 1903), makes clear the difference between the doctrine of Saint Thomas and that of Hurter and modern theologians.↩︎
See Denzinger, n. 241 [132].↩︎
See Trent, Decree on Justification, ch. 13.↩︎
“When put suddenly to the test, man acts on behalf of a preconceived end and on account of a preexisting habit” (Aristot., EN 3.8).↩︎
See ST I–II, q. 109, a. 8.↩︎
Cf. Trent, Decree on Justification, can. 23.↩︎
It is beyond the scope of this article to prove the necessity of present graces added to habitual grace. Pope Zosimus declares that help from above is necessary "for every one of our acts, every one of our thoughts, every one of our movements. In omnibus igitur actibus, causis, cogitationibus, motibus, adjutor et protector orandus est” (P. L., XX 693) Denzinger, no. 244 [135]. But this is the subject of another thesis.↩︎
See St. Alphonsus, Theologia Moralis, bk 6, tract. 4, ch. 1 dub. 2 quaer. 3, and Homo Apostolicus, tract. 16, no. 10.↩︎
Super Ezechiel, bk. I, homil. XI, v. 21 (P. L., LXXVI, 915).↩︎
Translator’s note: On the use of the “soul of the Church”, it is useful, however, to see the qualifications made by Journet in the third volume (final numbering, including in English) of his Church of the Word Incarnate.↩︎
“He names God by this name alone, because it is proper to the true God: Great God, Good God, and What God shall give—this is the voice of all. He even calls upon Him as Judge: God sees, I entrust it to God, and God will repay me. O testimony of the soul that is by nature Christian!" (Apol. c. XVII, P. L., I, 377; cf. lib, De testimonio anima, P. L., I, 610-611).↩︎
"Liberum arbitrium ad diligendum Deum primi peccati granditate perdidimus” (Epist. 217, ad Vitalem, c. IV, P. L., XXXIII, 983).↩︎
ST I-II, q. 109, a. 3.↩︎
Ibid., a. 8.↩︎
Mt. 22:38.↩︎
1 Tim. 1:5.↩︎
S. Basil, Regulae fusius tractatae, interrog. 2 (P. G., XXXI, 907).↩︎
“Two loves made two cities, namely, the earthly by love of self to the point of contempt for God and the heavenly by love of God to contempt of self” (S. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, bk. 14, ch. 28, P. L., XLI, 436.) “Indeed, this is the great difference by which we distinguish the two cities in question: namely, one is the society of godly people, the other of the ungodly, each joined to the angels that belong to it—where in the one, the love of God has taken precedence, and in the other, the love of self (De Civit. Dei, bk. 14, ch. 13, P. L., XLI, 421).↩︎
See our article, “The Salvation of Pagans” (available on To Be a Thomist). Tr. note: Also see my comments, only briefly indicated, there concerning Maritain’s treatment of this issue, especially in footnote 42.↩︎
Cf. Pius X, E supremi apostolatus cathedra (Oct. 4. 1903).↩︎
“Jesus mel in ore, in aure melos, in corde jubilus” (S. Bernardus, Sermo 15 super Cantica)↩︎
Rom. 7:25.↩︎
Acts 4:11-12.↩︎
Jn. 14:6.↩︎
See Pius X, Jucunda sane (March 12, 1904) on the feast of Pope S. Gregory the Great.↩︎
