Grace defined in the Catechism and comments

The Catholic Church defines ‘grace’ in her Catechism as follows:

The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification. 1999

also --(not in catechism)--

  simply a basic recognition that grace is more than mere divine favor, and is essentially a participation in the divine nature.[http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/09/horton-on-being-made-one-flesh-with-christ/  from comment 25]

me--so a gift that God makes to us of his own life---would include a participation in the divine nature

one guy states it: "Grace is a participitation in the divine life of God that perfects our human nature  "
mateo here at comment   45  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/12/signs-of-predestination-a-catholic-discusses-election/

and here in the next to last paragraph http://principiumunitatis.blogspot.com/2008/11/why-did-adam-orginally-need-grace.html

For Aquinas, grace is not merely divine favor; it was something in Adam and Eve. Aquinas would have treated the notion that grace is either something ontological or merely divine favor, as a false dilemma. He teaches in Summa Theologica I-II Q.110 a.1 that grace has three aspects. In one sense it refers to favor. In another sense it refers to the gift given as an expression of that favor. And in another sense it refers to the gratitude one has for the reception of a gratuitous gift. So we don't have to choose between grace as divine favor, and grace as divine gift. 

also from comment 3 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/06/pelagian-westminister/#comment-9572

 Let me add something else about grace, because Protestants and Catholics do not have exactly the same conception of what grace is, and as a result, we sometimes end up talking past each other when we talk about grace. For Protestants, typically, grace is only a divine attitude, namely, God’s undeserved favor. For example, earlier this year I had a conversation with R. Scott Clark (Professor of Church History and Historical Theology at Westminster Seminary California) about grace. In the course of that conversation he wrote [UPDATE: Clark has moved his blog, so this post can now be found here]:

We Protestants don’t have “created grace” we have “favor” with God. It’s not a “thing.” It’s not some “stuff.” It’s God’s attitude toward us. Full stop.

I responded:

So, were those [first] Reformed theologians completely wrong about grace being infused in sanctification, or are you saying that the infused grace (in sanctification) is infused divine favor? If the latter, then, what exactly do you mean by the infusion of divine favor?

Scott replied:

I’m not sure that I would use that language now.

If, as Scott claimed, grace is “God’s attitude toward us. Full stop,” then grace cannot be infused into us. That’s because it makes no sense for an attitude to be infused. And that’s why the notion of infused grace is unavailable to Scott, because he has defined grace as only an attitude or stance on God’s part. Now, given your argument in this post, conceiving of grace as only a divine attitude, and not as any divine gift given to us out of that divine favor, would entail a Pelagian pre-Fall soteriology. That’s because, as I pointed out, a divine attitude cannot be infused. And yet as you have pointed out, the notion that man could fulfill the Covenant of Works without the infusion of grace is essentially Pelagian.

By contrast, St. Augustine and St. Thomas talk about grace not only as divine favor, but also as the divine gift given to us, within us. For example, St. Thomas writes:

According to the common manner of speech, grace is usually taken in three ways.First, for anyone’s love, as we are accustomed to say that the soldier is in the good graces of the king, i.e. the king looks on him with favor. Secondly, it is taken for any gift freely bestowed, as we are accustomed to say: I do you this act of grace.Thirdly, it is taken for the recompense of a gift given “gratis,” inasmuch as we are said to be “grateful” for benefits. Of these three the second depends on the first, since one bestows something on another “gratis” from the love wherewith he receives him into his good “graces.” And from the second proceeds the third, since from benefits bestowed “gratis” arises “gratitude.” Now as regards the last two, it is clear that grace implies something in him who receives grace: first, the gift given gratis; secondly, the acknowledgment of the gift. But as regards the first, a difference must be noted between the grace of God and the grace of man; for since the creature’s good springs from the Divine will, some good in the creature flows from God’s love, whereby He wishes the good of the creature. On the other hand, the will of man is moved by the good pre-existing in things; and hence man’s love does not wholly cause the good of the thing, but pre-supposes it either in part or wholly. Therefore it is clear that every love of God is followed at some time by a good caused in the creature, but not co-eternal with the eternal love. And according to this difference of good the love of God to the creature is looked at differently. For one is common, whereby He loves “all things that are” (Wisdom 11:25), and thereby gives things their natural being. But the second is a special love, whereby He draws the rational creature above the condition of its nature to a participation of the Divine good; and according to this love He is said to love anyone simply, since it is by this love that God simply wishes the eternal good, which is Himself, for the creature. (Summa Theologica I-II Q.110 a.1 [my emphases])

This “participation of the Divine good” is the grace infused into us, whereby we are made partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). For St. Thomas, grace can be infused, because grace is not merely a divine attitude, but also the gift of participation in the divine nature. (See also Daniel Keating’sDeification and Grace, 2007) In this way, St. Thomas, like St. Augustine, avoids a Pelagian soteriology in man’s pre-Fall condition. But given the soundness of your argument, conceiving of grace as only a divine attitude seems to entail a Pelagian soteriology in the Garden.

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

All the grace that comes from Christ’s Passion, comes to us in the New Covenant through the sacraments He has established in His Church. That is true even when this sanctifying grace comes to a person prior their reception of the sacrament. In such a case it is not that sanctifying grace came to them apart from the sacrament; rather, the grace they received came through the sacrament, prior to their reception of the sacrament.

fromYOUCAT:

 What is grace?

By grace we mean God’s free, loving gift to us, his helping goodness, the vitality that comes from him. Through the Cross and Resurrection, God devotes himself entirely to us and communicates himself to us in grace. Grace is everything God grants us, without our deserving it in the least.

“Grace”, says Pope Benedict XVI, “is being looked upon by God, our being touched by his love.” Grace is not a thing, but rather God’s communication of himself to men. God never gives less than himself. In grace we are in God. 

What does God’s grace do to us?

God’s grace brings us into the inner life of the Holy Trinity, into the exchange of love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It makes us capable of living in God’s love and of acting on the basis of this love.

Grace is infused in us from above and cannot be explained in terms of natural causes(supernatural grace). It makes us—especially through Baptism—children of God and heirs of heaven (sanctifying or deifying grace). It bestows on us a permanent disposition to do good (habitual grace). Grace helps us to know, to will, and to do everything that leads us to what is good, to God, and to heaven (actual grace). Grace comes about in a special way in the sacraments, which according to the will of our Savior are the preeminent places for our encounter with God (sacramental grace). Grace is manifested also in special gifts of grace that are granted to individual Christians ( charisms) or in special powers that are promised to those in the state of marriage, the ordained state, or the religious state (graces of state). 

How is God’s grace related to our freedom?

God’s grace is freely bestowed on a person, and it seeks and summons him to respond in complete freedom. Grace does not compel. God’s love wants our free assent.

One can also say No to the offer of grace. Grace, nevertheless, is not something external or foreign to man; it is what he actually yearns for in his deepest freedom. In moving us by his grace, God anticipates man’s free response. (YOUCAT questions 338-340)

see CCC 1996-2005

from 87 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/07/habitual-sin-and-the-grace-of-the-sacraments/

Yes, I agree that part of the problem involves different definitions of grace. You asked, “If grace is not unmerited favor, then what is it?” See comment #3 in the “Pelagian Westminster?” thread, where I answered that question in more depth. In the Reformed system, grace is divine favor, full stop. But in Catholic doctrine grace is not only divine favor, but also the help God gives to us because of His favor toward us, and including (at its apex) the gift of participation in the divine nature. The gift infused into our soul, whereby Christ lives in us, and we in Him by way of participation, is the gift of sanctifying grace.

You wrote:

Consider this from the 1996 CCC: “…Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.”

That paragraph includes not only divine favor, but also the undeserved help (i.e. actual grace) God gives us to respond to His call, and finally becoming partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life, and that partaking is sanctifying grace. (See the next paragraph, i.e. paragraph 1997, which is speaking about sanctifying grace, and shows that grace is not merely divine favor, but also “a participation in the life of God.”) So the Catholic conception of grace is much thicker than is the Reformed conception of grace, because the Catholic conception includes not only divine favor, but the supernatural gifts that God gives to us out of His favor, and especially the gift of participation in His own divine life.

.......................

Since the “union” with Christ allowed in Reformed theology is only covenantal, and not in any way ontological, therefore it cannot put anything in us to death, or renew anything in us. I agree that these phrases (e.g. “puts to death our body of sin” and “renews us to the image of God”) are part of the Reformed tradition, but if grace is mere favor, and sacraments are means of grace, then it would follow that what puts to death our body of sin and renews us to the image of God is knowledge of God’s favor. Now, if you want to say that the Holy Spirit operates through the sacraments to give us something other than knowledge, then I think you’re on the right track. But we would need to discuss what it is that the Holy Spirit gives us. If He gives us a participation in the divine life, then you have distanced yourself from Clark and Horton’s notion of grace (and your own, apparently) and come closer to thebaptismal regeneration position that presently has the Reformed world in an uproar (since Peter Leithart was acquitted today).
f
from  comment 92

You’re right that among the early Reformers the term “saving graces” was used. I noted as much incomment #3 of the “Pelagian Westminster?” thread, and in #87 above. But Clark has a good reason for wanting to use a different term for what the WLC refers to as “saving graces.” See Sinclair Ferguson’s statement in comment #54 of the “Nature, Grace, and Man’s Supernatural End” thread. Ferguson’s position is the contemporary Reformed (and Protestant) position. I see it over and over coming from Reformed leaders, not just Clark and Horton. Timothy George says something similar in his bookAmazing Grace. In fact, I can’t think of a single Reformed leader who would take issue with what Ferguson says there.

The reason Clark does not want to use the term ‘grace’ for what the early Reformers were referring to when they used terms like “saving graces” is that what they were referring to is entirely different from what in Catholic theology is meant by the terms ‘actual grace’ and ‘sanctifying grace.’ In Reformed theology these ‘saving graces’ are God working in us to repair our fallen nature. So we could more accurately describe them as divinely wrought repairs to our human nature. In Reformed theology nothing divine is actually “infused” into us; rather, God works in us to repair what is fallen to its original nature. That’s why it is misleading (given Reformed theology) to speak of graces being infused into the believer; it is like saying that a repair was infused into your car at the shop. Repairs are not the sort of things that are infused; repairs are made, effected or accomplished, not infused.

In Catholic doctrine, grace is ordered to our supernatural end, and human nature is not itself fallen, as I have described in “Nature, Grace, and Man’s Supernatural End: Feingold, Kline, and the Clark.” So in Catholic doctrine grace is rightly described as infused, because it is not a repair, but is a participation in the divine nature, not something we have by nature, or effected by repairing something we have by nature.

Of course Clark is not denying sanctification, and not denying that the Spirit effects sanctification through Word and sacraments. So he is not denying the selections from the WLC and the WSC to which you refer. He is trying to avoid semantic confusion between the Catholic understanding of grace as infused participation in the divine nature, and the Reformed notion of the Spirit working in us to repair our fallen human nature. See pages 575-579 of volume 3 of Bavink’s Reformed Dogmatics. Repairing our fallen nature does not entail that there is any ontological union with Christ, or any participation in the divine nature, i.e. theosis. So, I don’t see that the statements to which you are referring (in the WSC, WLC, etc.) falsify anything I said. No Reformed person I know would ever say that God doesn’t sanctify believers, and nothing I said, so far as I can tell, entails or implies that Reformed theology denies that God works in believers to sanctify them. So if sanctification is all that is meant by “infusion of graces,” then of course Reformed theology affirms that. But, at that point we’re meaning something so different by “infusion of grace” that we’re equivocating and possibly misleading, for the reasons I’ve just explained. And that’s what Clark is trying to avoid, it seems to me.