Treatise On Grace
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ScribdTranslationsTREATISE ON GRACE
Brother Lic. Hugo Reyes
Leonel Avilés García
HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE DOCTRINE OF GRACE
The vision of redemption according to the Church Fathers before St. Augustine was the
next: 'God became man so that man might become God,' this is what Irenaeus said.
Lyon. For the theologians of the East, the reception of grace is identified with the salvific action.
of God, that is, with suoikonomia. Since creation, God is on our side and the culmination of
this is Christ. This salvific action of Christ remains active in the Holy Spirit through
the liturgy.
Sin did not extinguish this creation of man in the image and likeness of God, although it did
remained deformed, however, God should be the ultimate fullness of man. Then the parents
they understood that this long process of salvation and education would be done by God in His action, renewing
man in His image and likeness. And all the weight of redemption rests in the Incarnation of
Son of God, who will be fulfilled in his passion, death, and resurrection. Thus was the doctrine of the
Eastern grace emphasizes the free cooperation of man.
Now, in the anteroom of the doctrine of grace in the West, there was a confrontation with
the Manichean gnostic dualism, in other words, this dualism consisted of the world of the
matter is the source of all evil; when man attains knowledge (gnosis) through
Revealing, redemption is understood as a return to the divine spiritual world of light, that is,
a liberation of matter, which is the source of all evil. Gnosticism also denies the
"free will" that converges in the elimination of ethics. The way in which man
behavior in the world does not matter. Not so in Christianity, because Christians highlight the
goodness of creation as a permanent importance of free will for the practice of good. The
Christianity insisted on the ethical and ascetic dimension of the new humanity, based on the
thank you.
It is for this reason that the Church Fathers believed that the origin of evil is not in
the matter, but in freedom, the free will of man, in his will that is inclined to
to distance oneself from God. It is Tertullian who first makes a distinction between nature and the
thanks. He himself said that in man there is an ontological goodness, a nature that he received
of God as a basic gift. It is true that through the sin of Adam, sin was established in the
man, but it is not his nature.
St. Augustine imprinted on Western Christianity a seal that even in our days still
perceives. How can we describe the doctrine of grace, in its theocentric dimensions?
Christological and pneumatological, of Saint Augustine? In the following way: the consequence of sin
original, it is that man became the object of divine wrath. Human nature has
weakened by original sin and is subject to concupiscence; man sins because he is
free. Concupiscence can only be truly mastered by baptism and grace of the
justification achieved by Jesus Christ on the cross. For this, the effectiveness of grace is necessary.
actually, without which man cannot desire any supernatural good nor persevere until the end.
In his tireless fight against Pelagianism, Saint Augustine insisted greatly on gratuity.
of grace. On one hand, all humanity is inclined to sin, and on the other, no one has the right
grace cannot carry out any supernatural good without dependence on mercy
Divine. Then a difficulty arises: Does God grant grace to all men or selects some?
some? Saint Augustine says that God does not give His grace to everyone, so God is partial, He makes a
selection. So it is possible that the condemned may face an uncertain fate for not having
having used the grace granted by God, then God grants grace to everyone, so in his
freedom to decide not to use this granted grace?
Moreover, the problem of predestination arises. Why does God allow there to be saints and
condemned? Saint Augustine did not know the answer, but he always tried to clarify it. To understand this
let's see the following:
Saint Augustine is an existentialist theologian; he did not know the abstract concept of the
human nature, a nature that in part has never really existed, but rather
contemplates man in concrete existential modes, that is to say, salvation and the
perdition; therefore, it does not recognize terms and technical expressions of later theology.
Saint Augustine understands sin as the rebellion against the order of things desired by God;
and concupiscence is interpreted as desires that turn away from God and direct towards the
beloved creature in its own right. And facing the naturalistic conception of grace according to
Pelagius, St. Augustine focuses on the Grace of Christ, that is, the unearned grace that acts.
with internal and ineffable power in the heart of man, bringing forth the good
decisions of the will and justifies him by infusing love through the Holy Spirit.
Regarding the doctrine of free will, Saint Augustine makes an important distinction.
free will and true freedom. Free will is simply the capacity
of man's choice, which I preserved even after the fall into original sin. Without
embargo, it also says that man lost the freedom to choose good and to carry it out
cable and that is only achieved with grace.
As for semipelagianism (a term that was used starting in the 16th century to designate
the reaction provoked in Africa and the southern G alias by the Augustinian doctrine of necessity
absolute and grace for all meritorious work), if all merit is a gift of grace, one would have to
to conclude that no good work, nor any prayer, contains value in itself. To this
semi-Pelagianism opposes this, as God's universal saving will does not depend on
divine counsel, but rather from the assent of human will. These were condemned in the
Second Council of Orange.
The decisions of the Church's magisterium have been forceful, for example the council
from Carthage in 418, as they extend the line of Augustine. Although the documents of the magisterium
they were not from ecumenical councils, nor from ex cathedra declarations of the popes (in the current sense
of this expression), have been accepted by the universal Church and are considered as an expression
authenticity of the faith of the Church.
Regarding the doctrine of the efficacy of grace, canon 22 of the Second Arausian affirms that
man is incapable of loving God above all things, he is not capable of doing good things for
love for God. However, God, by granting us grace, drives our will to seek faith.
through baptism. It is through this grace that the human being has the possibility to begin and
consume the faith. That is why the cooperation of free will that has been redeemed is necessary for the
salvation of man. If man admits that without Jesus we can do nothing, then we must
to confess that it is Christ himself who forgives us all our sins. Therefore, the increase of
grace, like persevering in doing good until the end, is the work of the same grace. Everything is
determines through the struggle against temptation, crucifying your reason, your own self.
In medieval theology, there was an evolution, for example, the controversy about the
predestination. These ideas of predestination were rejected by two synods: the synod of
Mainz (848), and that of Quersy-Oise (853), in defending the doctrine of the Salvific Will of God
and of man's free will, as well as the unique predestination to salvation. God knows
who are the condemned who remain in the mass of perdition, but it is not God who...
predestines to commit evil and to condemn oneself. The question for the preparation of grace during the
medieval is this: How is man's free will ordered to the reception of grace?
the response is that man, in the face of grace, does not have a passive attitude, but rather a receptive and active one and
as a condition of creature, he receives it as the recipient. Because man is endowed by the
free will, and grace is accepted by his will in accordance with his free nature. Grace
It is the beginning of virtue, therefore free will must prepare itself for the reception of grace.
Now, what is the problem of created and uncreated grace? I will try to answer this.
question in the following way: until the Scholastic period, grace was defined as a
God's loving inclination that allows man to enter into communion with Him, that is, it is a relationship.
of the man with God that is founded on divine favor. What is uncreated grace? According to Peter of
Lombardo, the love poured out in our hearts and for which we love God is the same
Holy Spirit. Then there exists a quality in the human soul caused by the Holy Spirit, by
the natural functions of the soul such as faith, hope, trust, and love, remain
conformed to grace, raised above themselves and directed to the God of revelation. To
this is what is called "uncreated grace" or "inherent grace". Now if grace is understood as
love, the idea of a created grace inevitably arises, which is the effect that God places in his
creature to empower it, so that it can reach its level from a distance and thus be capable of going out to meet.
of the creator.
Saint Thomas Aquinas said that if man were not a person, one could not speak of
love, because love seeks the unity and communion of people. So in man cannot
to be loved by God, in the strict sense, without this love enabling the created person to love
also by itself and reach communion with God. "...through the grace of justification, the
man becomes a lover of God, because by grace he is ordered to the end that God has for him.
It allows for sharing... The very first effect of sanctifying grace is that man loves God.
(S.c.g III, 151).
For Martin Luther, the central passages referring to grace are the Letter to the
Romans 1:17; 3:21-26; 4:25; 5:18; cf. 2 Corinthians 5:21. Luther gives a warning about the
Pauline doctrine that he discovered and that is in contradiction with the doctrine of justification by
the works, under which medieval Scholasticism and the whole Church succumbed. Luther was mistaken,
in fact, man is justified before God, but he remains in it, during his life, the
internal contradiction and the concupiscence towards sin. That is why the Christian life is a
to die and be resurrected daily with Christ.
The fathers of the Council of Trent limited themselves to only referencing the doctrine of the
Church, without getting too caught up in condemning the people of the Reformation. And they did it as follows.
way:
The inability of human nature and the law of Moses to justify the
Man. All human beings lost their original innocence because of sin.
Adam, in other words, is guilty before God for the loss of His Justice. They have
completely fallen under the power of sin, therefore it cannot just with its
natural forces, nor by the law of Moses, to free themselves or to rise to God.
But they retain free will, that is, the manliberum arbitrium, but not
he has freedom, that is, free will adorned with grace. Therefore, without the
grace nobody can be saved.
The salvific mystery of the coming of Christ. In the fullness of time, the
the son of God came to redeem all men, first to the Jews and even to
the pagans.
Who are justified by Christ. Christ died for all, but only those who...
those who are communicated the merit of the passion of Christ are justified, in turn
they receive the grace that makes them righteous.
The method of preparation: faith comes by hearing, followed by the acceptance of the
revealed truths, then fear, trust in Christ, which is the beginning of
love of God, then hatred of sin, the disposition to repentance, conversion,
to request baptism, and the purpose of embarking on a new life.
To conclude this report, it can be said that man, only by grace, can reach
to God. And also by the same grace, man can reach himself in his actions of
knowledge and will. The fullness of grace is the freedom of man, it is the perfection of
the grace is the eternal love of
God with whom He has predestined us to divine sonship and introduces us into the eternal communion of
the Church with him” (S. th. I/II q. 110 a.1)
