ARTICLE II

In the Second Article We Ask: IS INGRATIATORY GRACE THE SAME AS CHARITY?

Difficulties:

It seems that it is, for

1. Ingratiatory grace in us is that gift of God by which we are acceptable to Him. But we are so by charity, as is written in Proverbs (8:17): "I love them that love me." Ingratiatory grace is therefore the same as charity.

2. Augustine says that the benefit of God by which the will of man is prepared antecedently is faith--not unformed but formed faith, which is achieved by charity. Now since that benefit is antecedent grace, it therefore seems that charity is grace itself.

3. The Holy Spirit is sent invisibly to a person in order to dwell within him. By the same gift, then, He is sent and indwells. Now He is said to be sent by the gift of charity, just as the Son is said to be sent by the gift of wisdom, because of the similarity of these gifts to the divine persons. But the Holy Spirit is said to dwell in the soul by grace. Grace is therefore the same as charity.

4. Grace is that gift of God by which we are made worthy to have eternal life. But man is made worthy of eternal life by charity, as is evident from the words in John (14:21): "If anyone shall love me, he shall be loved of my Father: and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." Now eternal life consists in that manifestation. Charity is therefore the same as grace.

5. In charity we can distinguish two aspects that are essential to it: by it man is dear to God, and by it man holds God dear. But man's being dear to God is essential to charity antecedently to his holding God dear, as is made clear in the first Epistle of St. John (4:10): "Not as though we had loved God, but because he hath first loved us." But this is the essence of grace: by it man is pleasing to God. Now, since it is the same thing to be dear to God and to be pleasing to Him, it therefore seems that grace is the same as charity.

6. Augustine says: "It is only charity which distinguishes between the sons of the kingdom and the sons of perdition," for the rest of God's gifts are common to the good and the bad alike. But ingratiatory grace distinguishes between the sons of perdition and those of the kingdom and is found only in the good. It is therefore the same as charity.

7. Since ingratiatory grace is an accident, it can only be in the genus of quality, and there only in the first species: habit and disposition. Since it is not knowledge, it does not seem to be anything else than virtue. And no virtue can be called grace except charity, which is the form of the other virtues. Grace is therefore charity.

To the Contrary:

1'. Nothing precedes itself. But "grace precedes charity," as Augustine says. Grace is therefore not the same as charity.

2'. It is written in the Epistle to the Romans (5:5): "The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost who is given to us." Then the giving of the Holy Ghost precedes charity as a cause its effect. But the Holy Ghost is given to us as a result of a particular gift of His. Then there is a particular gift in us which precedes charity, and this does not seem to be anything but grace. Consequently grace is something other than charity.

3'. Grace is always in its act, because it always ingratiates man with God. But charity is not always in its act; for a man who has charity does not always actually love. Charity is therefore not grace.

4'. Charity is a type of love. Now it is on the basis of love that we are loving. It is therefore on the basis of charity that we are loving. But we are not acceptable to God inasmuch as we are loving, but rather the other way about; for our acts are not the cause of grace, but vice versa. Consequently the grace by which we are made acceptable to God is something other than charity.

5'. Whatever is common to many is not in any one of them by reason of anything that is proper to that one. But to produce a meritorious act is common to all virtue. It therefore belongs to no particular virtue on the basis of anything proper to it, and so not to charity either. It belongs to charity, then, on the basis of something common to it and all the virtues. But a meritorious act is from grace. Grace therefore expresses something common to charity and the other virtues. But it is apparently not common just predicatively, because then there would be as many graces as there are virtues. It is therefore common causally; and so grace is essentially distinct from charity.

6'. Charity perfects the soul in relation to a lovable object. But grace does not imply a relation to any object, because it does not imply a relation to an act but to a particular way of being, namely, being pleasing to God. Therefore grace is not charity.

REPLY:

Some say that grace is essentially the same as virtue in reality, though it differs conceptually, so that virtue is spoken of in so far as it perfects an act, and grace in so far as it makes man and his act acceptable to God. And among the virtues charity especially is grace according to these men. Others, on the contrary, say that charity and grace differ essentially, and that no virtue is essentially grace. This latter opinion seems the more reasonable.

Since different natures have different ends, there are three prerequisites for obtaining any end among natural things: a nature proportioned to that end, an inclination which is a natural appetite for that end, and a movement toward the end. Thus it is clear that in the element earth there is a certain nature by which being in the center is characteristic of it, and consequent upon this nature there is an inclination to the center according to which earth naturally tends to such a place even when it is violently kept away from it; and so when the obstacle is removed it always moves downward.

Now in his nature man is proportioned to a certain end for which he has a natural appetite and for the obtaining of which he can work by his natural powers. That end is a contemplation of divine things such as is possible to man according to the capabilities of his nature; and in this contemplation philosophers have placed man's ultimate happiness.

But there is an end for which man is prepared by God which surpasses the proportion of human nature, that is, eternal life, which consists in the vision of God by His essence. That vision is not proportionate to any creature whatsoever, being connatural only to God. It is therefore necessary that there be given to man not only something by which he can work toward that end or by which his appetite should be inclined to that end, but also something by which man's very nature should be raised to a dignity which would make such an end suited to him. For this, grace is given. But to incline his will to this end charity is given; and for carrying out the works by which that end is acquired, the other virtues are given.

Accordingly, just as in natural things the nature itself is distinct from the inclination of the nature and its motion or operation, in the same way in man's gratuitous gifts grace is distinct from charity and the other virtues. And that this comparison is rightly taken can be seen from Dionysius where he says that no one can have a spiritual operation unless he first receives a spiritual existence, just as he cannot have the operation of a particular nature unless he first has existence in that nature.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. God loves those who love him, yet not in such a way that the love of those who love him is the reason why He Himself loves, but rather the other way about.

2. Faith is said to be an antecedent grace inasmuch as there appears in the first movement of faith the effect of antecedent grace.

3. The whole Trinity dwells in us by means of grace; but indwelling can be appropriated specially to one person because of some other special gift which bears a resemblance to that person and provides the basis for saying that that person is sent.

4. Charity would not suffice for meriting eternal life unless it presupposed the fitness of the one meriting, and this is had by means of grace. Otherwise our love would not be deserving of so great a reward.

5. It is not out of keeping that something which is prior in reality should only posteriorly fulfill the notion of a particular name. Thus the cause of health is prior to health itself in the subject of health, and yet the term healthy signifies the one having health before it signifies the cause of health. In the same way, even though the divine love by which God loves us is prior to the love by which we love Him, yet charity implies in its notion that it makes God dear to us before it implies that it makes us dear to God. For the first belongs to love inasmuch as it is love, but not the second.

6. The fact that charity alone distinguishes between the sons of perdition and those of the kingdom belongs to it inasmuch as it cannot be unformed like the other virtues. Hence grace, by which charity itself is formed, is not thereby excluded.

7. Grace is in the first species of quality, though it cannot properly be called a habit because it is not immediately directed to an act but to a certain spiritual existence which it causes in the soul; and it is like a disposition in regard to glory, which is consummated grace. Yet nothing like grace is found among the accidents which the philosophers knew, because the philosophers knew only those accidents of the soul which are directed to acts proportioned to human nature.

Answers to Contrary Difficulties:

We concede these even though some of them do not arrive at their conclusions correctly.