Grace

[MoreCoffee]

In the thread Salvation some questions were raised about "grace"

One is about uncreated and created grace.

Other questions were also raised.

So, here is a new thread to discuss those specific issues. They do relate to Salvation but they also are a subject in themselves.

 

[MoreCoffee]

The definition of grace
The greatness of the gift of grace may be judged from the Biblical declarations of the effect of justification. Justification is a passage from the state of sin to the state of grace; from the old to the new man; from the mere flesh to the life of the spirit; from injustice to justice; from condemnation to liberation; from slavery to freedom; from sordidness to purity; from darkness to light; from death to life. The soul of the just man reflects the very light of the Godhead; it shines with a radiance like that of Christ Himself in His Transfiguration on the mountain.

Justification involves a negative effect and a positive one; and the two always go together: the remission of sin, and the infusion of grace.

Grace is favour or good-will. God’s favour or goodness to us, is God Himself, as all things in God are God. That is Uncreated Grace – which some say was forgotten in the controversies over grace after Trent.

Sanctifying grace. Sanctifying Grace is a supernatural gift of God by which the soul is made pleasing to Him. In Latin it is called gratia gratum faciens: grace making one pleasing – pleasing to God, that is. It removes all stain of serious sin; it gives the soul a new and higher life and prepares the soul for that union with God destined for it in the blessedness of Heaven. It is called Sanctifying Grace, because it sanctifies, makes holy, with the Holiness of God Himself. It is a supernatural gift, because it is something to which no creature as such can ever have any natural right or claim, or attain by its own powers. It is called Habitual Grace, because it dwells and endures in the soul as a habitual, i.e., permanent and constant, quality. It is also called Justifying Grace because by it the sinner is “justified”, i.e., made just or righteous.

Sanctifying Grace, a higher life, a participation in the divinity. The soul of man gives him a three-fold life. It enables him to grow, mature and reproduce, like a plant (vegetative life); to feel and perceive with the five senses, and move and follow instincts, like animals (sensitive life); and to think, reason, understand, contemplate, love and choose freely (intellectual life). But there is still a higher life, a divine life, a life which, by a true and real change, raises man above the natural excellence of the most exalted creatures, and sets him, so to speak, on a level with God Himself; a life which gives us a share in what is special to God Himself, a share in the knowledge God has of His own perfections and in the happiness He derives therefrom. This life is given to us by Sanctifying Grace. The state of grace is not merely the absence of mortal sin; it is a positive acquisition and elevation. “Therefore, if any one is in Christ”, says St Paul, “he is a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17). Scripture uses three participles: re-created, re-born, renewed. St Peter says the Father “has granted to us His precious and very great promises, that through these you may … become partakers of the divine nature.” (2 Pet 1:4). So Sanctifying Grace is also called Divine or Divinising Grace. Some of the Fathers speak of man’s divinisation or deification—as St John of the Cross uses the phrase, “We become God by participation”—which must be understood rightly of course! St John the Apostle says, “we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 Jn 3:2), and the Church prays at the Offertory of the Mass that “we may be made sharers in the Divinity of Him who deigned to participate in our humanity.”

Sanctifying Grace makes us children of God. A rational creature as such is not a child of God but a servant of God. Through Grace, God adopts us as His sons; and so brothers of Christ. It makes each of us an alter Christus, another Christ. We often use that phrase to speak of the effect of ordination, but in the early Fathers it refers to any Christian.

Sanctifying Grace enthrones the Holy Trinity in our soul. We speak of the Divine Indwelling. The change in the soul caused by Grace is wrought by all Three Divine Persons of the Blessed Trinity, but, being a work of Divine Love, it is ascribed to the Holy Spirit. His presence is incompatible with serious sin, “for”, as the Church prays in the Liturgy, “He is Himself the remission of all sins”—that phrase is in both the old and new Roman Missal.{{1}} The Holy Spirit is the Divine Artist who makes our soul like the soul of Jesus. Making us other Christs, the Holy Spirit takes up His dwelling in our body and soul: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?” (1 Cor 6:19). The Father and the Son are with the Holy Spirit in this indwelling: “If anyone loves me”, says Christ, “he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our home with him.” (Jn 14:23)

Sanctifying Grace caused in us by God through the humanity of Christ. God is the principal cause of Grace; Christ as Man is the instrumental cause. His humanity is the instrument of the divinity. He is grace’s transmitter. According to St Thomas,{{2}} the entire humanity of Christ co-operates in the production of Grace. The humanity of Christ is joined to God in inseparable union, and is always used by Him in the production of Sanctifying Grace. – God may or may not employ a Sacrament as a means. He often gives Sanctifying Grace outside the Sacraments: “God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but He Himself is not bound by His own sacraments.” (CCC 1257. Cf. St Thomas, Summa Theol., III, q. 64, a. 7: “God did not bind His power to the Sacraments, so as to be unable to bestow the sacramental effect without conferring the Sacrament”.)

With Sanctifying Grace we receive virtues and gifts. These are the necessary concomitants (accompaniments) of grace. They are not grace but always accompany it:

• The divine virtues. With Grace we receive the three Divine Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity: we believe in God because of His truthfulness; we hope in God because of His power and willingness to help us; we love God because of His own goodness and love.
• The moral virtues. The Moral Virtues are all those other virtues which are necessary for a good Christian life, which may be grouped under the four headings: Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude. (cf. Wis 8:7)
• The gifts of the Holy Spirit. Just as sanctifying grace makes our souls to be like that of Jesus, the virtues and gifts enable us to act like Jesus. A Christian virtue is a power of acting in a Christ-like way.

(source)

 

[Tigger]

I’m in the Orthodox camp where grace is more than unmerited favor but Christ Himself in the form of God’s energies.

 

[Arsenios]

The definition of grace
The greatness of the gift of grace may be judged from the Biblical declarations of the effect of justification. Justification is a passage from the state of sin to the state of grace; from the old to the new man; from the mere flesh to the life of the spirit; from injustice to justice; from condemnation to liberation; from slavery to freedom; from sordidness to purity; from darkness to light; from death to life. The soul of the just man reflects the very light of the Godhead; it shines with a radiance like that of Christ Himself in His Transfiguration on the mountain.

Justification involves a negative effect and a positive one; and the two always go together: the remission of sin, and the infusion of grace.

Grace is favour or good-will. God’s favour or goodness to us, is God Himself, as all things in God are God. That is Uncreated Grace – which some say was forgotten in the controversies over grace after Trent.

Sanctifying grace. Sanctifying Grace is a supernatural gift of God by which the soul is made pleasing to Him. In Latin it is called gratia gratum faciens: grace making one pleasing – pleasing to God, that is. It removes all stain of serious sin; it gives the soul a new and higher life and prepares the soul for that union with God destined for it in the blessedness of Heaven. It is called Sanctifying Grace, because it sanctifies, makes holy, with the Holiness of God Himself. It is a supernatural gift, because it is something to which no creature as such can ever have any natural right or claim, or attain by its own powers. It is called Habitual Grace, because it dwells and endures in the soul as a habitual, i.e., permanent and constant, quality. It is also called Justifying Grace because by it the sinner is “justified”, i.e., made just or righteous.

Sanctifying Grace, a higher life, a participation in the divinity. The soul of man gives him a three-fold life. It enables him to grow, mature and reproduce, like a plant (vegetative life); to feel and perceive with the five senses, and move and follow instincts, like animals (sensitive life); and to think, reason, understand, contemplate, love and choose freely (intellectual life). But there is still a higher life, a divine life, a life which, by a true and real change, raises man above the natural excellence of the most exalted creatures, and sets him, so to speak, on a level with God Himself; a life which gives us a share in what is special to God Himself, a share in the knowledge God has of His own perfections and in the happiness He derives therefrom. This life is given to us by Sanctifying Grace. The state of grace is not merely the absence of mortal sin; it is a positive acquisition and elevation. “Therefore, if any one is in Christ”, says St Paul, “he is a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17). Scripture uses three participles: re-created, re-born, renewed. St Peter says the Father “has granted to us His precious and very great promises, that through these you may … become partakers of the divine nature.” (2 Pet 1:4). So Sanctifying Grace is also called Divine or Divinising Grace. Some of the Fathers speak of man’s divinisation or deification—as St John of the Cross uses the phrase, “We become God by participation”—which must be understood rightly of course! St John the Apostle says, “we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 Jn 3:2), and the Church prays at the Offertory of the Mass that “we may be made sharers in the Divinity of Him who deigned to participate in our humanity.”

Sanctifying Grace makes us children of God. A rational creature as such is not a child of God but a servant of God. Through Grace, God adopts us as His sons; and so brothers of Christ. It makes each of us an alter Christus, another Christ. We often use that phrase to speak of the effect of ordination, but in the early Fathers it refers to any Christian.

Sanctifying Grace enthrones the Holy Trinity in our soul. We speak of the Divine Indwelling. The change in the soul caused by Grace is wrought by all Three Divine Persons of the Blessed Trinity, but, being a work of Divine Love, it is ascribed to the Holy Spirit. His presence is incompatible with serious sin, “for”, as the Church prays in the Liturgy, “He is Himself the remission of all sins”—that phrase is in both the old and new Roman Missal.{{1}} The Holy Spirit is the Divine Artist who makes our soul like the soul of Jesus. Making us other Christs, the Holy Spirit takes up His dwelling in our body and soul: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?” (1 Cor 6:19). The Father and the Son are with the Holy Spirit in this indwelling: “If anyone loves me”, says Christ, “he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our home with him.” (Jn 14:23)

Sanctifying Grace caused in us by God through the humanity of Christ. God is the principal cause of Grace; Christ as Man is the instrumental cause. His humanity is the instrument of the divinity. He is grace’s transmitter. According to St Thomas,{{2}} the entire humanity of Christ co-operates in the production of Grace. The humanity of Christ is joined to God in inseparable union, and is always used by Him in the production of Sanctifying Grace. – God may or may not employ a Sacrament as a means. He often gives Sanctifying Grace outside the Sacraments: “God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but He Himself is not bound by His own sacraments.” (CCC 1257. Cf. St Thomas, Summa Theol., III, q. 64, a. 7: “God did not bind His power to the Sacraments, so as to be unable to bestow the sacramental effect without conferring the Sacrament”.)

With Sanctifying Grace we receive virtues and gifts. These are the necessary concomitants (accompaniments) of grace. They are not grace but always accompany it:

• The divine virtues. With Grace we receive the three Divine Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity: we believe in God because of His truthfulness; we hope in God because of His power and willingness to help us; we love God because of His own goodness and love.
• The moral virtues. The Moral Virtues are all those other virtues which are necessary for a good Christian life, which may be grouped under the four headings: Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude. (cf. Wis 8:7)
• The gifts of the Holy Spirit. Just as sanctifying grace makes our souls to be like that of Jesus, the virtues and gifts enable us to act like Jesus. A Christian virtue is a power of acting in a Christ-like way.

(source)

Here is the reply that launched this thread:
_____________________________________________

MC, does this make any sense at all to you?

The Catholic Dictionary states:

there are three forms of uncreated grace:
THEN
all three are created graces
But the gift conferred on a creature is uncreated...

The reason given is that it is all a matter of how we are considering them???

It is a matter of OUR psycho-epistemology??

And THEN at the end:

grace escapes our experience
and cannot be known except by faith.

I cannot find any coherence in any of this at all...
________________________________________________________

So what is the difference in Latin teachings between created and Uncreated graces...?

And how is Uncreated Grace transformed into created grace...?

Or is it?

Is the writer of this piece really saying that created and uncreated grace is simply a matter of human perspective, as it seem to say? Because it does seem to say that both are the same grace seen from two perspectives, one human and one Divine... It then throws in that the gift is uncreated... And then that we cannot know it, except by faith, whatever that now means...

Can you make sense of this?

Arsenios

PS - Thank-you for starting this thread - Hopefully it may bear some fruit...

Here is what you had posted to which I replied:

Quote Originally Posted by MoreCoffee
______________________________________________________

First from CatholicCulture

Catholic Dictionary
Term
UNCREATED GRACE

Definition
God himself, insofar as in his love has predetermined gifts of grace.
there are three forms of uncreated grace:
the hypostatic union, the divine indwelling, and the beatific vision.

In the first of these, God has communicated himself
in the Incarnation of Christ's humanity (the grace of union)
so intimately that Jesus of Nazareth is a divine person.

In the second and third communications,
the souls of the justified on earth and of the glorified in heaven
are elevated to a share in God's own life.

all three are created graces, considered as acts,
since they all had a beginning in time.

But the gift that is conferred on a creature in these acts is uncreated.
​

​

 

[MoreCoffee]

Here is the reply that launched this thread:
_____________________________________________

MC, does this make any sense at all to you?

The Catholic Dictionary states:

there are three forms of uncreated grace:
THEN
all three are created graces
But the gift conferred on a creature is uncreated...

The reason given is that it is all a matter of how we are considering them???

It is a matter of OUR psycho-epistemology??

And THEN at the end:

grace escapes our experience
and cannot be known except by faith.

I cannot find any coherence in any of this at all...
________________________________________________________

So what is the difference in Latin teachings between created and Uncreated graces...?

And how is Uncreated Grace transformed into created grace...?

Or is it?

Is the writer of this piece really saying that created and uncreated grace is simply a matter of human perspective, as it seem to say? Because it does seem to say that both are the same grace seen from two perspectives, one human and one Divine... It then throws in that the gift is uncreated... And then that we cannot know it, except by faith, whatever that now means...

Can you make sense of this?

Arsenios

PS - Thank-you for starting this thread - Hopefully it may bear some fruit...

Here is what you had posted to which I replied:

Quote Originally Posted by MoreCoffee
______________________________________________________

I am beginning to think that the definition from the Catholic Culture web site is not helpful to you so let's bypass it. It is just a definition not an explanation, it seems, that is helpful to you.

 

[NewCreation435]

I am really confused about this uncreated grace, created grace thing. I am happy to admit I have no idea what your talking about or what the difference is. I looked it up in the encyclopedia and found this definition

"Created grace is any grace that results from God communicating Himself beyond nature's demands, such as the beatific vision and all supernatural creatures positively leading to it. It may be actual or habitual, external or internal, medicinal or elevating, or anything else, so long as it is a creature positively undue to the person it enhances. Since the reality signified by the term grace is found properly both in God and in created things given to creatures beyond their due, the term grace applies truly to some created gifts of the supernatural order. It is therefore some gratuitous gift of God, distinct from God Himself, positively leading to the beatific vision of God.

God Himself, given to a creature beyond any of its demands, is uncreated grace. Examples are primarily: the Blessed Trinity indwelling in the just as distinct from created gifts, the Son of God given in the Incarnation, the Holy Spirit sent men by the Father and the Son, the love of God for men that is God Himself beyond the demands of nature, and predestination, or God's decree to glorify those who shall be saved. This concept of grace is commonly admitted by theologians; for every supernatural gift is rightly called grace, and preeminent among these is God Himself."

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religi...nscripts-and-maps/grace-created-and-uncreated

Isn't most of our experiences "created grace" by this definition?

 

[Arsenios]

Continuing your article:Theological points on grace {{3}}

Sanctifying Grace is a created reality.

Some, such as Peter Lombard (in the Sentences, written 1155-57), held that Grace is the Holy Spirit. This opinion has long been abandoned; St Thomas comments on it to reject it. Uncreated Grace is God Himself, is God’s benevolence toward us; created grace is something distinct. So, as Trent says, it can be increased, and received within us, each according to his own measure, which the Holy Spirit distributes to everyone as He wills.

Sanctifying Grace is an interior reality.

This is a doctrine opposed to Luther and his followers. Scripture speaks with terms such as seal, gift, seed, charity infused. The Roman Catechism of 1566 expresses it: “Grace is not only that by which the remission of sin occurs, but a divine quality inhering in the soul”.

Sanctifying Grace is a permanent reality.

Actual Grace is a transient reality but we are speaking of Sanctifying Grace. One of the errors of Baius (Michael de Bay) condemned by Pope Pius V in 1567 was to say that sanctifying grace “consists formally in obedience to the commandments … and not rather in a grace infused into the soul through which man is adopted as a son of God and interiorly renewed”.{{4}} So, for example, we speak of keeping the Baptismal robe unstained until Judgement: because of its enduring quality. Another reason for upholding this enduring quality is that infants are baptized when manifestly they, as yet, receive no grace to do good works. If birth confers a nature and life, then re-birth must similarly communicate something continuous and stable – a new principle of supernatural life.

Sanctifying Grace is an ontological reality.

We add this to distinguish it again from actual grace or from human actions – since some have said that grace is the moral quality of good acts pleasing to God and conducive to eternal life. If infants receive something from Baptism, then it is not transient, and it is not their morally good actions – of which they are incapable when below the age of reason. Again, to speak, as Trent does, of grace being increased or lost or re-acquired, means it is an ontological reality, not merely a mental or moral concept. The Bible speaks of it as a seed, as light, as water welling up.

This is all about a category of creation called "sanctifying grace"???

Monsignor Antonio Piolanti (1910-2001) teaches “it is a doctrine theologically certain that Grace is a created, internal, permanent and ontological reality.” (p. 533)

Monsignor Piolanti would seem to agree...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

I am beginning to think that the definition from the Catholic Culture web site is not helpful to you so let's bypass it. It is just a definition not an explanation, it seems, that is helpful to you.

I live in a profound simplicity, my Brother...

Definitions are simple tools...

The definition given is not coherent...

It is indeed self-contradictory...

We can move on...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

I am really confused about this uncreated grace, created grace thing. I am happy to admit I have no idea what your talking about or what the difference is. I looked it up in the encyclopedia and found this definition

"Created grace is any grace that results from God communicating Himself beyond nature's demands, such as the beatific vision and all supernatural creatures positively leading to it. It may be actual or habitual, external or internal, medicinal or elevating, or anything else, so long as it is a creature positively undue to the person it enhances. Since the reality signified by the term grace is found properly both in God and in created things given to creatures beyond their due, the term grace applies truly to some created gifts of the supernatural order. It is therefore some gratuitous gift of God, distinct from God Himself, positively leading to the beatific vision of God.

God Himself, given to a creature beyond any of its demands, is uncreated grace. Examples are primarily: the Blessed Trinity indwelling in the just as distinct from created gifts, the Son of God given in the Incarnation, the Holy Spirit sent men by the Father and the Son, the love of God for men that is God Himself beyond the demands of nature, and predestination, or God's decree to glorify those who shall be saved. This concept of grace is commonly admitted by theologians; for every supernatural gift is rightly called grace, and preeminent among these is God Himself."

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religi...nscripts-and-maps/grace-created-and-uncreated

Isn't most of our experiences "created grace" by this definition?

Uncreated Grace IS God Himself, but NOT God's Essence...
Otherwise we would BE God Himself if we received it...

Created Grace is, I should think, God's Providence...
The Helps God affords to us to direct us to Him...

Psa 82
God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.
How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.
Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.
Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.
They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course.
I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.
Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations.

Does anyone know WHEN this happened?

Arsenios

 

[MoreCoffee]

Continuing your article:Theological points on grace {{3}}



This is all about a category of creation called "sanctifying grace"???



Monsignor Piolanti would seem to agree...

Arsenios

I think it will take some time and some effort to properly digest the article, it is for the clergy and likely assumes philosophical studies that I am not so sure I have undertaken. I shall read the rest of the article with care. You may want to do the same. I may write to my bishop for clarifications if I need them.

PS: The concept of uncreated grace does not appear to be obscure. It may be summarised simply as "God's giving of himself" and the incarnation and all that it encompasses is (at the very least) part of that gift. Theosis is implied in the gift of incarnation. I am not sure that this topic is present in Protestant theology.

 

[Arsenios]

I think it will take some time and some effort to properly digest the article, it is for the clergy and likely assumes philosophical studies that I am not so sure I have undertaken. I shall read the rest of the article with care. You may want to do the same. I may write to my bishop for clarifications if I need them.

I will be inter

PS: The concept of uncreated grace does not appear to be obscure.

It may be summarised simply as "God's giving of himself"

Well then, nothing obscure about THAT!!

Personally, I might add, I find God's giving of Himself being given as totally obscure...

You obviously have a clarity in which I am lacking then...

and the incarnation and all that it encompasses is (at the very least) part of that gift.

The Incarnation makes that Gift possible...

Theosis is implied in the gift of incarnation.

Why? It existed in the Old Testament too...

I am not sure that this topic is present in Protestant theology.

Unlike you, I am sure that it is not...

But I have encountered Protestants who have received the Gift...

Arsenios

 

[MoreCoffee]

The incarnation to which I refer is the incarnation of Jesus Christ. I do not think that is an "old testament event"

 

[Arsenios]

The incarnation to which I refer is the incarnation of Jesus Christ. I do not think that is an "old testament event"

Theosis is a pre-Incarnational as well as post-Incarnation event...

It is what Salvation in the Old Testament means...

Moses had it...

Paul in Hebrews give a glorious list of the giants of faith who had it...

It is not restricted historically to the time after Christ's Incarnation...

Christ brought something much more to His Salvation...

So much more that He said: "The LEAST in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than the greatest of the OT Prophets..." [Please don't hold me to the exact words - But that was the idea..."

Does the Latin Catholic Church teach the doctrine of Theosis?

And the means of its attainment?

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

This is from the RC Conference Papers' Catechism on Grace:
______________________________________________________________

The nature of Actual Grace

Actual Grace is a supernatural gift of God,
enabling us to do something towards eternal life.
It is supernatural, because it is a help towards happiness to which we, as creatures, can have no claim.
It is a transient, or passing, aid, and is present in the soul only while the soul is acting.
It is like the electric current which,
passing for an instant through the wire wound round an iron bar,
gives the bar a momentary magnetic power.

Sanctifying Grace, on the other hand, is something permanent,
and is like the electric power in a storage battery.
Sanctifying Grace makes us friends of God,
while Actual Grace enables us to act the part of friends.
_______________________________________________________

MC, I just bog down when I try to enter into this kind of definition...

I mean, ACTUAL vs SANCTIFYING grace??

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

I am really confused about this uncreated grace, created grace thing.
I am happy to admit I have no idea what your talking about
or what the difference is.

The issue is the central feature of our understanding of what it is that Salvation is...
Scripture records that we are saved by Grace through Faith...
And that this is the Gift of God...

So clearly it is not our faith that saves us, because if it is, then we save ourselves...
Clearly also, we are saved by God, which no one denies...
So when Scripture records that we are saved by Grace,
it is saying that Grace IS God...
The Grace that saves us through faith is the Grace of God...

So the question then becomes, "How is God Himself the Grace of God?"

It is unquestionable that we do not become God by God's Grace...

But the shadow of Peter healed the sick...

And Ananias gave sight to Paul...

And filled him with the Holy Spirit...

And Paul writes that the faithful have tasted in an earnest the Power of the Age to Come...

The Historical Church has understood that while not becoming God,
those perfected in the Faith have indeed become "Godded"...
Indeed Moses was a god to Pharoah...
And Christ said "It is written: 'Ye are gods,' and what is written cannot be unwritten."

When God causes this to happen in a person, then that person, like Moses on the Mount, becomes divinized by God...
And this phenomenon we call "Theosis"... It is common to Salvation in both the Old Testament and in the New Testament... And I should immediately add, it is NOT common at all... But it is much MORE common now than before Christ... It is not pointed to in triumph by the Church to advertise the veracity of the Orthodox Faith so as to parade living Saints about to prove us right... Indeed, these are hidden carefully... They exist... Yet we DO hold the doctrine of Theosis as a Dogma of the Faith... It is the basis of Patristic Theology and the Faith of our Fathers...

It is quintessentially Salvation in Christ in a person's Maturation in the Faith that Christ discipled to His Apostles...

It is the doctrine that has been lost to the West...

As also has been the Apostolic discipling that leads to it...

Arsenios

 

[psalms 91]

All I know is that grace is a wonderful gift from God and that thank God for Salvation, cutting the fine lines and all the rest I will leave to the theologans and pray that those not saved dont get to confused either, the gospel is simple and uncomplicated as it should be

 

[MoreCoffee]

This is from the RC Conference Papers' Catechism on Grace:
______________________________________________________________

The nature of Actual Grace

Actual Grace is a supernatural gift of God,
enabling us to do something towards eternal life.
It is supernatural, because it is a help towards happiness to which we, as creatures, can have no claim.
It is a transient, or passing, aid, and is present in the soul only while the soul is acting.
It is like the electric current which,
passing for an instant through the wire wound round an iron bar,
gives the bar a momentary magnetic power.

Sanctifying Grace, on the other hand, is something permanent,
and is like the electric power in a storage battery.
Sanctifying Grace makes us friends of God,
while Actual Grace enables us to act the part of friends.
_______________________________________________________

MC, I just bog down when I try to enter into this kind of definition...

I mean, ACTUAL vs SANCTIFYING grace??

Arsenios

The contrast between "actual" and "uncreated" is not - as is the case in modern spoken English - a distinction between what is real (actual) and what is ideal (or supernatural, or eternal, etcetera). The words in English mean things that are not what the words mean in theology and especially theology that was for more than 1,500 years conducted almost exclusively in Latin. I think that the intention is to distinguish between what is event-in-time and observable-in-creation from what is God. But that turn of phrase may not help you very much. So I'll offer this and you can come back with questions - which I do not guarantee I will be able to answer.

Human beings have notions like "existence" and "real" that are very much like "observable" and "able-to-be-experienced" or "able to be measured" with senses or with senses enhanced by instruments. The key idea here is that creatures use created things to measure and to observe and to declare "it exists". But God is not a creature so how can created things measure God, observe God, and so forth? Thinking that instruments and senses can "prove that God exists" by observing him and measuring him seems to imply that God is encompassed by "the universe" thus making God merely the greatest "being in the universe" thus making God a being contained in something greater than himself and hence making God a creature rather than the creator. This is how many atheists argue their case. They insist that "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence" and by that sentence they mean that God has to be detectable by instruments or by human senses. Theology refutes this kind of thinking while at the same time acknowledging that God is able to manifest himself in creation.

Following on from what is said above it is noteworthy that here in this created life and world as it stands today human beings do not see God face to face. But Christians rightly hope to see God face to face. Saint Paul wrote:

1Corinthians 13:8 Love will never end. Prophecies may cease, tongues be silent and knowledge disappear. 9 For knowledge grasps something of the truth and prophecy as well. 10 And when what is perfect comes, everything imperfect will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I thought and reasoned like a child, but when I grew up, I gave up childish ways. 12 Likewise, at present, we see dimly, as in a mirror, but, then, it shall be face to face. Now, we know, in part, but then I will know as I am known. 13 Now, we have faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.​

The graces human beings see and experience in this world are actual grace and actual graces. They are creaturely they are created insofar as they are experienced in creation by creatures in time. Uncreated grace is not encompassed by creation and time (time is itself a creation, but somehow it seems like human beings constantly need to bring that to the fore because human beings really have no sense perception of eternity and only fairly unformed vague conceptions about eternity as long as human beings are in this life).

Time for me to pause and sleep. It is very late here. almost 04:00.

 

[Arsenios]

All I know is that grace is a wonderful gift from God and that thank God for Salvation, cutting the fine lines and all the rest I will leave to the theologans and pray that those not saved dont get to confused either, the gospel is simple and uncomplicated as it should be

God Bless you brother - That is all you need...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

The contrast between "actual" and "uncreated" is not - as is the case in modern spoken English - a distinction between what is real (actual) and what is ideal (or supernatural, or eternal, etcetera). The words in English mean things that are not what the words mean in theology and especially theology that was for more than 1,500 years conducted almost exclusively in Latin. I think that the intention is to distinguish between what is event-in-time and observable-in-creation from what is God. But that turn of phrase may not help you very much. So I'll offer this and you can come back with questions - which I do not guarantee I will be able to answer.

Human beings have notions like "existence" and "real" that are very much like "observable" and "able-to-be-experienced" or "able to be measured" with senses or with senses enhanced by instruments. The key idea here is that creatures use created things to measure and to observe and to declare "it exists". But God is not a creature so how can created things measure God, observe God, and so forth? Thinking that instruments and senses can "prove that God exists" by observing him and measuring him seems to imply that God is encompassed by "the universe" thus making God merely the greatest "being in the universe" thus making God a being contained in something greater than himself and hence making God a creature rather than the creator. This is how many atheists argue their case. They insist that "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence" and by that sentence they mean that God has to be detectable by instruments or by human senses. Theology refutes this kind of thinking while at the same time acknowledging that God is able to manifest himself in creation.

Following on from what is said above it is noteworthy that here in this created life and world as it stands today human beings do not see God face to face. But Christians rightly hope to see God face to face. Saint Paul wrote:

1Corinthians 13:8 Love will never end. Prophecies may cease, tongues be silent and knowledge disappear. 9 For knowledge grasps something of the truth and prophecy as well. 10 And when what is perfect comes, everything imperfect will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I thought and reasoned like a child, but when I grew up, I gave up childish ways. 12 Likewise, at present, we see dimly, as in a mirror, but, then, it shall be face to face. Now, we know, in part, but then I will know as I am known. 13 Now, we have faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.​

The graces human beings see and experience in this world are actual grace and actual graces. They are creaturely they are created insofar as they are experienced in creation by creatures in time. Uncreated grace is not encompassed by creation and time (time is itself a creation, but somehow it seems like human beings constantly need to bring that to the fore because human beings really have no sense perception of eternity and only fairly unformed vague conceptions about eternity as long as human beings are in this life).

Time for me to pause and sleep. It is very late here. almost 04:00.

You end up going to bed about the time I am getting up from bed and sleep...

So between us, we might have things covered, I say!

Meanwhile, what does the RCC teach about the relationship between God's providence and created grace vs uncreated grace?

You wrote this:
"Human beings really have no sense perception of eternity
and only fairly unformed vague conceptions about eternity
as long as human beings are in this life."

I want to say this to you:
Human beings encounter Life Eternal in this life, here and now, physically...
When that Mystery is encountered, it is encountered body and soul...
Because man is body then soul...
The experience of eternity is not a conception...
It becomes memory that will not suffer explanation...
It is an empirical even in time that will only afford description...
It IS experienced sensually in noetic apperception...
It will impact whoever has it given them cognitively and more...

Original Theology is not speculation on the meaning of words written in the Bible...
The Orthodox Church "officially" recognizes but 4 originative theologians...
The rest are derivative from these 4...
Yet the discipleship of the Church is for all to become so...

Arsenios

 

[MoreCoffee]

You end up going to bed about the time I am getting up from bed and sleep...

So between us, we might have things covered, I say!

Meanwhile, what does the RCC teach about the relationship between God's providence and created grace vs uncreated grace?

I do not know, I could check. It isn't a matter that has interested me recently.

V. GOD CARRIES OUT HIS PLAN: DIVINE PROVIDENCE
302 Creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. the universe was created "in a state of journeying" (in statu viae) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it. We call "divine providence" the dispositions by which God guides his creation toward this perfection:

By his providence God protects and governs all things which he has made, "reaching mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and ordering all things well". For "all are open and laid bare to his eyes", even those things which are yet to come into existence through the free action of creatures.161
​

303 The witness of Scripture is unanimous that the solicitude of divine providence is concrete and immediate; God cares for all, from the least things to the great events of the world and its history. the sacred books powerfully affirm God's absolute sovereignty over the course of events: "Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases."162 and so it is with Christ, "who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens".163 As the book of Proverbs states: "Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will be established."164
304 And so we see the Holy Spirit, the principal author of Sacred Scripture, often attributing actions to God without mentioning any secondary causes. This is not a "primitive mode of speech", but a profound way of recalling God's primacy and absolute Lordship over history and the world,165 and so of educating his people to trust in him. the prayer of the Psalms is the great school of this trust.166
305 Jesus asks for childlike abandonment to the providence of our heavenly Father who takes care of his children's smallest needs: "Therefore do not be anxious, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?". . . Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well."167
Providence and secondary causes
306 God is the sovereign master of his plan. But to carry it out he also makes use of his creatures' co-operation. This use is not a sign of weakness, but rather a token of almighty God's greatness and goodness. For God grants his creatures not only their existence, but also the dignity of acting on their own, of being causes and principles for each other, and thus of co-operating in the accomplishment of his plan.
307 To human beings God even gives the power of freely sharing in his providence by entrusting them with the responsibility of "subduing" the earth and having dominion over it.168 God thus enables men to be intelligent and free causes in order to complete the work of creation, to perfect its harmony for their own good and that of their neighbours. Though often unconscious collaborators with God's will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions, their prayers and their sufferings.169 They then fully become "God's fellow workers" and co-workers for his kingdom.170
308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator. God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: "For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."171 Far from diminishing the creature's dignity, this truth enhances it. Drawn from nothingness by God's power, wisdom and goodness, it can do nothing if it is cut off from its origin, for "without a Creator the creature vanishes."172 Still less can a creature attain its ultimate end without the help of God's grace.173
Providence and the scandal of evil
309 If God the Father almighty, the Creator of the ordered and good world, cares for all his creatures, why does evil exist? To this question, as pressing as it is unavoidable and as painful as it is mysterious, no quick answer will suffice. Only Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer to this question: the goodness of creation, the drama of sin and the patient love of God who comes to meet man by his covenants, the redemptive Incarnation of his Son, his gift of the Spirit, his gathering of the Church, the power of the sacraments and his call to a blessed life to which free creatures are invited to consent in advance, but from which, by a terrible mystery, they can also turn away in advance. There is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil.
310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better.174 But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world "in a state of journeying" towards its ultimate perfection. In God's plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.175
311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil.176 He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it:

For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.177​

312 In time we can discover that God in his almighty providence can bring a good from the consequences of an evil, even a moral evil, caused by his creatures: "It was not you", said Joseph to his brothers, "who sent me here, but God. . . You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive."178 From the greatest moral evil ever committed - the rejection and murder of God's only Son, caused by the sins of all men - God, by his grace that "abounded all the more",179 brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption. But for all that, evil never becomes a good.
313 "We know that in everything God works for good for those who love him."180 The constant witness of the saints confirms this truth:

St. Catherine of Siena said to "those who are scandalized and rebel against what happens to them": "Everything comes from love, all is ordained for the salvation of man, God does nothing without this goal in mind."181
St. Thomas More, shortly before his martyrdom, consoled his daughter: "Nothing can come but that that God wills. and I make me very sure that whatsoever that be, seem it never so bad in sight, it shall indeed be the best."182
Dame Julian of Norwich: "Here I was taught by the grace of God that I should steadfastly keep me in the faith... and that at the same time I should take my stand on and earnestly believe in what our Lord shewed in this time - that 'all manner (of) thing shall be well.'"183
​

314 We firmly believe that God is master of the world and of its history. But the ways of his providence are often unknown to us. Only at the end, when our partial knowledge ceases, when we see God "face to face",184 will we fully know the ways by which - even through the dramas of evil and sin - God has guided his creation to that definitive sabbath rest185 for which he created heaven and earth. (source)​

You wrote this:
"Human beings really have no sense perception of eternity
and only fairly unformed vague conceptions about eternity
as long as human beings are in this life."

I want to say this to you:
Human beings encounter Life Eternal in this life, here and now, physically...
When that Mystery is encountered, it is encountered body and soul...
Because man is body then soul...
The experience of eternity is not a conception...
It becomes memory that will not suffer explanation...
It is an empirical even in time that will only afford description...
It IS experienced sensually in noetic apperception...
It will impact whoever has it given them cognitively and more...

Original Theology is not speculation on the meaning of words written in the Bible...
The Orthodox Church "officially" recognizes but 4 originative theologians...
The rest are derivative from these 4...
Yet the discipleship of the Church is for all to become so...

Arsenios