Sanctifying grace--part of a definition
By sanctifying grace we understand that permanent gift, which is now given through Christ and by which a man becomes formally justified, a partaker of the divine nature, an adopted son of God and heir of eternal life. In the present order, sanctifying grace is associated with the uncreated gift of the Holy Spirit and such created gifts as the infused virtues of faith, hope and supernatural charity.
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/God/God_013.htm http://www.readability.com/articles/lf38wnsv
from another article found here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/10/a-reply-from-a-romery-person/
A Catholic can agree with this, so long as we distinguish between actual grace (i.e. the grace whereby God moves us), and sanctifying grace (the grace that inheres in our soul, and heals our human nature wounded by sin by giving us a share in the divine life of the Trinity.) Without actual grace, we cannot turn and prepare ourselves, to faith and calling upon God. To claim that we could do so without actual grace would be at least semi-Pelagianism. But, with actual grace we can prepare ourselves for sanctifying grace, the grace we receive through the sacrament of regeneration, which is baptism. When we receive sanctifying grace we also receive agape, and when we receive agape we are made right with God, and hence justified.
We avoid semi-Pelagianism, because actual grace works in us first, without us. St. Augustine and St. Thomas refer to this as operative grace. And we avoid monergism because we can (after having been moved by operative grace, and with the help of cooperative grace — both of those here being actual grace) prepare ourselves (without any merit) to receive sanctifying grace (and hence receive agape and be justified) through the sacrament of baptism.
from comment 7:
Bryan said the above statement was correct (me-note the last justification in the sentence is referring to our initial justification.
from comment 51
Yes, sanctifying grace is the same thing as “habitual grace.” For those who have attained the age of reason, sanctifying grace can be in us only as a result of our cooperation; but babies receive sanctifying grace in baptism. Yes, actual grace always precedes each growth in sanctification. But actual grace is resistible; see comment #12 in the “Is the Catholic Church Semi-Pelagian?” thread.
here is a def of actual grace:
“Actual grace derives its name, actual, from the Latin actualis (ad actum), for it is granted by God for the performance of salutary acts and is present and disappears with the action itself. Its opposite, therefore, is not possible grace, which is without usefulness or importance, but habitual grace, which causes a state of holiness, so that the mutual relations between these two kinds of grace are the relation between action and state, not those between actuality and potentiality. …Catholic Encyclopedia, Article: Actual Grace
from a comment here # 30: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/10/protestant-objections-to-the-catholic-doctrines-of-original-justice-and-original-sin/ Go to the comment on the site to see the video at the bottom of this comment
I addressed the Sproul video below in a previous post, but in watching it again recently, it was clear that just about everything Sproul says in the video below in criticism of Catholic doctrine indicates either an unawareness of, or a question-begging presupposition against, the Catholic understanding of the difference between nature and grace. He presupposes a Reformed conception of nature/grace, and then uses that conception as the basis for his criticisms, not realizing (apparently) the paradigmatic nature of the difference between the Reformed and Catholic theological positions. So, for example, in the 8th minute of the video he completely misses the distinction between actual grace and sanctifying grace, thereby confusing what Trent is saying about actual grace as though it is talking about justifying grace. (On this distinction see “Lawrence Feingold on Sanctifying Grace and Actual Grace.” See also my “A Reply from a Romery Person.”) He treats as an ‘ambiguity’ what is clear in light of the Tradition, that the “grace 0f justification” is the grace received at the moment of baptism.
By presupposing the Reformed conception of nature/grace, Sproul simply begs the question (i.e. presupposes precisely what is in question) regarding the possibility of assenting and cooperating with actual grace. The nature/grace paradigm difference is what underlies the monergism/synergism question. Sproul, however, treats the monergism question as settled by what it means to be “dead in sins,” not realizing (apparently) that what it means to be “dead in sins” depends precisely on the nature/grace question. For this reason his criticisms presuppose precisely what is in question, because he fails to see that his premises presuppose the truth of the Reformed paradigm.
The same is true of his criticisms of the Church’s condemnations of the errors of Michael du Bay, and Cornelius Jansen toward the end of the video. In each case, Sproul presupposes the Reformed conceptions of nature and grace, and thus begs the question. He treats the infallibility of God’s election as entailing the irresistibility of divine grace, an inference St. Augustine did not make. He claims that the Catholic Church has contradicted herself on this question (by ruling out at one time or other every available option), but then never actually lays out the alleged contradiction, and so conveniently leaves his accusation as a mere unsubstantiated assertion.
At the end of his lecture, he criticizes the Catholic Catechism’s teaching on free will:
Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude. As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil, and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach. (CCC 1731-32)
Sproul claims (24′) that because the Catholic Church teaches that man, after the fall, still retains the power to choose between good and evil, therefore the Catholic Church’s position is Pelagian. But the relevant question in the Pelagian dispute was not whether post-fall man could choose between good and evil, but whether man could, without grace, never sin, and so merit heaven. Neither Pelagius nor St. Augustine claimed that fallen man could not choose between good and evil. St. Augustine was not unaware that even unregenerate fathers provide for their children, and their mothers care for them, even to the point of death, and that the civil authority could justifiably enjoin its citizens to keep the law, and justifiably punish those who disobeyed it, because they could have chosen otherwise. All of that is at the level of nature, not grace. (See “Did the Council of Trent Contradict the Second Council of Orange?“) These good acts are not sins, but neither are they meritorious, because they are not done from grace and divinely infused agape. Sproul’s claim that Catholic teaching on free will is “Pelagian” is thus not only false, but presupposes the Reformed conception of nature/grace, and thus presupposes precisely what is in question. In this way it fails to recognize the paradigmatic nature of the dispute.
see also an explanation of grace as used by the Council of Trent and the second Council of Orange: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/09/did-the-council-of-trent-contradict-the-second-council-of-orange/
see also an explanation of grace as used by the Council of Trent and the second Council of Orange: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/09/did-the-council-of-trent-contradict-the-second-council-of-orange/
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