Grace--alone/ cooperation Prot/Catholic

from comment 339 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/09/why-protestantism-has-no-visible-catholic-church/#comment-62524

That section of Trent is talking about cooperation with actual grace; after the action of operative actual grace we then cooperate with cooperative actual grace. Cooperation with cooperative actual grace leads to justification in baptism, through which we receive the infusion of sanctifying grace and all the theological virtues. But nothing [in Catholic dogma] entails that operative actual grace cannot ever be efficacious in the Báñezian sense. The Church has not condemned Báñezianism.





2001 The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. This latter is needed to arouse and sustain our collaboration in justification through faith, and in sanctification through charity. God brings to completion in us what he has begun, "since he who completes his work by cooperating with our will began by working so that we might will it:"⁵⁰

Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing.⁵¹

Cooperation with grace

.quotes from: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/03/sola-gratia/ by  Sean Patrick 

J.I. “”Packer describes this disagreement between Protestants and Catholics regarding cooperation with grace by stating:

Rome had said, God’s grace is great, for through Christ’s cross and his Church salvation is possible for all who will work and suffer for it; so come to church, and toil! But the Reformers said, God’s grace is greater, for through Christ’s cross and his Spirit salvation, full and free, with its unlimited guarantee of eternal joy, is given once and forever to all who believe; so come to Christ, and trust and take!¹⁰

However, just because something is easier, it does not follow that it is greater. Reformed Protestants say that God’s grace is great because all one does in the economy of justification is believe. But Universalists say that God’s grace is even greater because one does not even have to believe.¹¹ Certainly Catholics and Reformed Christians agree that the Universalist conception of grace does not represent biblical orthodox Christian theology. Thus, the greatness of grace should not be measured by our degree of cooperation with it.

What underlies Packer’s concern that the grace of God cannot be aided by our participation is a particular philosophical presupposition, namely, that primary and secondary causes operate at the same causal level. Therefore the more that is done by secondary causes, the less is done by primary causes, and hence less glory is due to primary causes. This is what underlies Packer’s concern that the grace of God cannot be aided by our participation.

According to the Catholic Church, because we are truly infused with grace at baptism we are conformed unto Christ’s image and made alive to cooperate with God’s grace by working out our salvation with fear and trembling. Since we are a new creation, we are no longer dead in our trespasses. The Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes St. Augustine in its chapter on Grace (Paragraphs 1996-2005) to describe this in greater detail:

Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing.¹²

How does this compare to the Reformed conception of grace as it pertains to justification? The typical Reformed response to the Catholic Church’s teaching on grace and cooperation is that the Catholic Church is attempting to add something to God’s freely given grace, namely our cooperation. However, salvation is broader than justification, since salvation includes sanctification. And clearly, sanctification involves our active cooperation with grace, as A.A. Hodge makes clear in his discussion of the Reformed teaching on sanctification in the salvific scheme:

The evangelical doctrine of sanctification common to the Lutheran and Reformed Churches includes the following points: (1) The soul after regeneration continues dependent upon the constant gracious operations of the Holy Spirit, but is, through grace, able to co-operate with them.¹³

The Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith by Robert Shaw goes even further:

Antinomians maintain, that believers are sanctified only by the holiness of Christ being imputed to them, and that there is no inherent holiness infused into them, nor required of them. This is a great and dangerous error; and, in opposition to it, our Confession asserts, that believers are really and personally sanctified. Their sanctification includes “the mortification of sin in their members.”¹⁴

Therefore, the Reformed confessional standard teaches in explicit terms that sanctification involves our cooperation with grace. Since sanctification is part of our salvation according to the same confessions, it follows that salvation includes a measure of human cooperation with grace. If salvation is thus, then Catholic teaching cannot be incompatible with sola gratia simply because Catholicism affirms human cooperation in salvation. But even further, Catholic teaching is not only compatible with sola gratia, Catholic teaching entails sola gratia.

There are two criteria that sola gratia, properly understood, requires. The first is that God, not man, takes the initiative in drawing us to Himself and making it possible for us to respond to Him. The second is that every contribution that we make towards our salvation is itself a gift of grace.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church maintains these criteria in clear terms:

Justification establishes cooperation between God’s grace and man’s freedom. On man’s part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent.¹⁵

This vocation to eternal life is supernatural. It depends entirely on God’s gratuitous initiative, for he alone can reveal and give himself. It surpasses the power of human intellect and will, as that of every other creature.¹⁶

The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. This latter is needed to arouse and sustain our collaboration in justification through faith, and in sanctification through charity. God brings to completion in us what he has begun, “since he who completes his work by cooperating with our will began by working so that we might will it.”¹⁷

Since the dogmatic Catholic teaching meets both criteria for sola gratia, and since those criteria are sufficient for the truth of sola gratia, therefore the Catholic position entails and maintains sola gratia.

Please comment on this article here.

Another good article on the differences between Protestant and Catholic views on grace can be found here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/10/a-reply-from-a-romery-person/

Also in  a discussion on this topic here (http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/11/how-the-church-won-an-interview-with-jason-stellman/) in the comments there was this remark in comment 18:

So in the eyes of the reformed, it is Rome’s gospel that is deficient such that Jesus’ sacrificial life is only participated upon in the sacraments which participation is dependent on man’s free choice

Why is the gospel deficient when participation is dependent on man’s free choice to reject or cooperate with God’s grace?

Doesn’t the apostle say we are justified by grace through faith? Are you saying that in a “non-deficient” gospel, it should be possible to have “living” faith and yet not cooperate with His grace?

from comment 19:

 What I’m saying is that if Reformed people are going to balk at cooperation, then at least be consistent and deny the need for cross-bearing, interceding for others, and preaching the gospel. All of those things (we would all agree) are examples of the Father graciously enabling us to share in Jesus’ work (cooperation)

from http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/07/st-augustine-on-law-and-grace/ :

By contrast, for St. Augustine (and the Catholic Church), being under grace does not mean that our justification (or condemnation) does not depend on our law-keeping. Rather, being under grace means having received grace from God into our hearts, and the infused virtues of faith, hope, and agape such that with this divine help we are enabled to keep the law, it being written on our hearts. This is what it means to walk in the newness of the Spirit. For St. Augustine, by the gift of infused grace and agape, the law is fulfilled in us, because agape fulfills the law. By grace we are enabled to love the law, and not be hearers only, but doers of the law. Grace does not take away our obligation to fulfill the law; it does not mean that Christ fulfills the law so that we do not have to do so. Rather, grace enables to us to keep the law, and so truly fulfill the law, not by extra nos imputation nor, like Pelagius, by ourselves without grace, but through grace by God working in us to will and to do what is pleasing in His sight, i.e. living in accordance with His royal law. The Reformed conception of grace is in this respect a weaker conception of grace, because such grace is unable to make us capable of fulfilling the law. But St. Augustine’s (and the Catholic Church’s) doctrine of grace is a more powerful or higher view of grace, because for St. Augustin grace is the power of God in us enabling us to keep the law and so be truly well-pleasing in His sight.

from comment   13    here  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/12/justification-catholic-church-and-the-judaizers/

Under the New Covenant, the grace merited for us by Christ’s Passion comes to us through the sacraments He established in His Church...............................

The person who by acts of love (agape) increases his justification is subsequently “different” only in that it is a greater participation in the divine nature. But, there is no part of our justification that is from us, as though justification could be divided into parts. The conjunction of divine and human causality in the increase in justification is not part/part, as though God does part and we do part. God justifies us, but not without our free consent. Likewise, our actions in a state of grace are gratuitously meritorious, because it is God who freely and graciously granted us this grace, and every subsequent good act, done by us in agape, is a divinely-granted gift of participation in that divine movement of justification we received through our baptism. 

and here:
“The righteousness that is infused into us at baptism was merited for us [by way of satisfaction] through Christ’s sacrifice, and yet is also, by infusion, truly ours. And the increases in righteousness through acts of love flowing from that infused agape are Christ’s because they are the dynamic expression of that infused agape, and are ours, because they are our cooperation in that agape. This is one implication of the ontology of participation.”

—	from comment 108 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/12/justification-catholic-church-and-the-judaizers/

However according to this Protestant comment there are some similarities: This is found in comment
   here 137 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/04/thought-experiment-for-monergists/

 Robert Shaw wrote a commentary on the confession and has been the standard commentary for about 200 years in the scottish churches.

On Chapter 10 of the confession concerning effectual calling Shaw states,

“4. That in this calling no violence is offered to the will. While the Spirit effectually draws sinners to Christ, he deals with them in a way agreeable to their rational nature, “so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace.” The liberty of the will is not invaded, for that would destroy its very nature; but its obstinacy is overcome, its perverseness taken away, and the whole soul powerfully, yet sweetly, attracted to the Saviour. The compliance of the soul is voluntary, while the energy of the Spirit is efficient and almighty: “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.”—Ps. cx. 3.”

The will is not forced.

!Oh but you calvinists will not admit a synergism after conversion! Wrong! Repeat wrong!

1. Girardeau asserts the free will of man restored after conversion,

“As then efficacious grace. the fruit of election, RESTORES TO HIM THE LIBERTY TO WILL HOLINESS, SO FAR FROM BEING INCONSISTENT WITH THAT LIBERTY, IT IS PROVED TO BE ITS ONLY CAUSE.”

Calvinism and Evangelical Arminianism

Girardeau muses over the problem of determination and the will of man post redemption. I think Shaw answers this.

2. Commenting on WCF 10.2 Robert Shaw says,

“7. That in this calling the sinner is altogether passive, until he is quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit. Here it is proper to distinguish between regeneration and conversion; in the former the sinner is passive – in the latter he is active, or co-operates with the grace of God. In regeneration a principle of grace is implanted in the soul, and previous to this the sinner is incapable of moral activity; for, in the language of inspiration, he is “dead in trespasses and sins.” In conversion the soul turns to God, which imports activity; but still the sinner only acts as he is acted upon by God, who “worketh in him both to will and to do.”

In Regeneration he is passive in conversion he is active and co-operates. Co-operation is synergism again after conversion.

from http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/10/a-reply-from-a-romery-person/

The Catholic understanding is that to be “dead in sins” is to be without the life of God, i.e without sanctifying grace. That is what it means to be unregenerate. Since the fall of Adam, all human beings are born into the world without the life of God, i.e. without sanctifying grace and without agape. We call this privation of the life of God, “original sin.” Without sanctifying grace we still have a functioning intellect and a will. But we cannot love God with supernatural love (i.e. agape) because agape is present in us only if we have sanctifying grace, i.e. a participation in the divine life. So, without sanctifying grace we can know God as Creator simply by the things He has made, and we can have natural virtues. But we cannot know God as Father, and have faith, hope, and agape. Without agape, we cannot have friendship with God as Father. So without sanctifying grace, we cannot enter into heaven. According to Catholic doctrine, the unregenerate man cannot do things ordered to a supernatural end (i.e. heaven) because he is not a participant in the divine nature. Since he only has human nature, which is natural, he can only achieve a natural end. But heaven is a supernatural end. Hence, without sanctifying grace he cannot attain to a supernatural end.

According to the Catholic position, for those in the unregenerate condition, God must act first without us, in giving us grace, before we can freely move toward Him. (Otherwise we’d be semi-Pelagian, if we believed that we, without His grace, acted first toward Him as our supernatural end.) But our privation of the life of God does not require that we must be “regenerated” before we freely move toward Him. Catholic doctrine makes a distinction here between two forms of grace. One form, called ‘actual grace,’ is the grace by which God moves our hearts and minds. The other form, called ‘sanctifying grace,’ is that participation in the divine nature by which we are sanctified in our very soul and made sons of God. In Catholic theology regeneration means receiving sanctifying grace. A person who is moved by actual grace, but has not yet received sanctifying grace, is not yet regenerated. And in Catholic theology sanctifying grace comes through the sacrament of baptism, though it can (while still coming through the sacrament of baptism) precede the reception of that sacrament. But, in Catholic theology actual grace comes to us before regeneration, and actual grace first acts as operative grace (in which God moves us without us), and then by our participation actual grace acts as cooperative grace (God moving us with us), leading us to faith and baptism by which we receive sanctifying grace, and are thereby justified.