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Chapter Nine: Grace
- University of Notre Dame Press
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Nine Grace In this chapter, I will provide an introduction to Aquinas’ doctrine of grace, as this is found, in particular, in ST I-II.‒.1 The treatise on grace does not, however, stand in isolation. It not only completes the Prima Secundae, bringing to a term Aquinas’ reflections there on the movement of the human person to God as end;2 it also continues and completes the depiction of predestination initiated in the Prima Pars of the Summa (I.). Grace figures anew in the Tertia Pars, in the consideration of what might be termed a test or limit case: the unique situation of Jesus Christ, who is both God and human. Accordingly, I will devote most of my attention to I-II.‒, and then end with brief reflections on I. and a group of the relevant questions from the treatise on Christ. The actual starting-point of the ex professo analysis of grace in the Prima Secundae is in fact a matter of some scholarly dispute. Others might insist that Aquinas begins the discussion of grace proper with q., in the questions that handle the New Law.3 That I-II.‒ are important and provide the link between what comes before—on law in its various manifestations, including the Old Law—and what comes after—grace—is beyond question. Nonetheless, those questions add little to the presentation of grace itself; and their main insight— the interiority of the New Law, as the inward prompting of the Holy Spirit—is adequately advanced by Aquinas in the course of his detailed teaching on grace. Thus, we can safely begin with ST I-II.. ST I-II.‒: Grace In the six questions of the treatise on grace, Aquinas examines a healthy range of issues. In identifying these issues as worthy of inclusion, Aquinas is undoubtedly conditioned by his historical circumstances; he reflects on topics that other Scholastics also have found pertinent to a treatise on grace, although of course the full teaching is his own, distinctive and proper to himself.4 The questions on grace are divided by Aquinas into three groups.5 The first group reviews the need for grace (q.), the essence of grace (q.), and its division (q.). In q., Aquinas looks at the cause of grace. And, in the remaining group of two questions of the treatise, he examines the effects of grace: justification (q.) and merit (q.). Running throughout the first question on the need for grace, and informing most of the others, are three main distinctions. The first is the difference between what may be called the natural order, and the supernatural order. For Aquinas, what is natural lies within a being’s powers. Thus, it is natural for a human to think discursively and to will, for the human is endowed with the capacity for such thinking and willing. And as embodied intellect, a human can come to know whatever presents itself to the senses; the intellect forms concepts and judgments on the basis of that evidence. In contrast, the squirrel lacks the capacity to think and will (the example is my own); it simply senses and acts on instinct. If, then, one were to ask the squirrel to follow, perhaps even contribute to, an argument, that would be to ask of the squirrel what lies beyond its natural capacity (which makes the squirrel capable of merely squirrel sorts of things). We are here provided with what can be termed a first introduction to the “supernatural” as Aquinas takes it. Something is considered “supernatural” when it lies beyond or above the natural capacities of a being. Aquinas is of course concerned, in drawing our attention to the difference between the natural and the supernatural, with humans in relation to God and especially to God as their end. Is the act in question something that is natural to the person, or is it natural to God, and so beyond the natural capacity of the human? In q., Aquinas asks the question about the need for grace in each of the articles, and so in effect asks the question of need ten times. Is grace needed for this or for that—for example, to know the truth of the things encountered in this world, or, to will God, akin to God’s willing of Godself ? In the early articles of the question, the answer is fairly easy and straightforward. If the act is natural to the human, then grace will not be needed...