Sect. 218Actital GraceActital Grace

I. Actual and habitual grace are the two species of the genus “grace.” Both are free gifts of God to man. But whereas habitual grace connotes an enduring state of the soul, actual grace connotes a passing act produced in it by the gratuitous operation of God. In this wider sense, all supernatural acts, the free acts of our will included, are gifts and acts of God, and may be styled actual graces. In a narrower sense, however, actual grace is a gratuitous Divine operation, entirely or partly different from habitual grace, by which God so influences the moral acts of the soul that they come into existence as His own gifts and operations. Actual grace enables and causes the will to perform salutary acts. Technically, it is defined as gratuitum principium proximum agendi, and donum per quod et in quo præstatur nobis ut agamus, that is, the Divine gift by which we are led to act. Habitual grace, indeed, enables us to perform salutary acts, but the actual impulse, the motive power that determines each particular act, is actual grace.

II. Since the introduction of the term “actual” grace to designate all graces other than habitual grace, it has become customary to use the older designations in the same sense. Thus the terms, “operating,” “co-operating,” “helping,” “assisting,” “moving,” “awakening” graces, all directly and specifically imply certain Divine operations in the soul whereby God furthers its natural activity. Likewise “interior grace” is used for actual grace, as opposed to the external influence of God or other creatures, on the soul. This is a correct theological use of the term. We must, however, bear in mind that the Schoolmen, and especially the Fathers, did not always use these terms as co-extensive with what is now called “actual” grace. With them, oftener than not, the terms serve to describe the working and work of God in the soul as distinct from habitual grace. Thus to the gratia auxilians (helping grace) they ascribe the remission of sins and the regeneration of man, and not unfrequently they speak of it in the same terms as of sanctifying or habitual grace.

III. When the soul receives the touch of helping grace, it answers by moving itself towards the object for which it was bestowed. The reception of the “touch” is a vital act of the soul, which prepares and disposes it to further operation in the order of grace. Theologians say “grace excites (awakens) the act in the soul.” These expressions imply (1) that the impression made by grace is a vital act—cognition or affection—of the soul; (2) that it disposes the soul to exert its own free activity in a given direction. In modern language the grace in question is a God-given vital energy, furthering acts of spiritual life.

IV. The first elements of the “energy” of actual grace are those acts of the intellect which apprehend the object, the motive, and the means of the good deed to be performed by the will. For every voluntary action depends on a judgment of the intellect as to its advisability. The knowledge of the principles, the terms and the consequence which lead to such conclusion, are the illumination of the mind (illustratio mentis), which is the first actual grace. Knowledge, however, only disposes to the good deed without administering the necessary energy. The “energetic” disposition is produced by God in the form of affections, feelings, motions of the will, which fecundate its freedom and lead it to act rightly. These sensations of the soul (motus, affectus, sensus cordis) are not originated by the free will; they are not free or voluntary acts, but instinctive workings of the mind or heart, leanings and inclinations preparing the free will for action. They are inspired or awakened (excitati) by God; they touch and impel the will before it determines on its free action, and are thus the true “actual, helping, disposing grace.” Even when the will has acted under the impulse of an involuntary inclination, e.g. when it has consented to work out the salvation to which it feels attracted—the inclination is, or may be, maintained by God to support and advance the free working of the will. In this case the former indeliberate sense becomes a deliberate act, without losing the character of actual grace.

V. The process by which God’s grace works out the salutary act of the soul may fitly be compared with the process of generation. God is, as it were, the father, our soul the mother, of the fruit of life. God’s fecundating grace enters the soul, stirs up its natural energy, is received and developed by that same energy, i.e. the free will, until the good deed is brought forth, the common product of grace and free will.

VI. Grace acts on the soul both negatively and positively. Its negative action consists in preventing the evil suggestions of the world, the flesh, and the devil from taking effect upon the mind. This gracious protection often implies the strengthening of the soul by positive Divine influence. Positively, grace acts in two ways: (1) it externally proposes to the soul objects the knowledge of which is apt to lead to salutary actions; (2) it internally supplies the necessary spiritual energy for performing such actions. The preaching of the Church, the words and deeds of good men, certain clear manifestations of God’s providence, the suggestions of our Guardian Angels, are examples of the first manner; to which, since the sixteenth century, has been applied the technical term of motio moralis—that is, motion by suggestion, advice, command, persuasion, or any other means in the power of mere creatures to induce a free will to act. The second, or energizing action, is termed motio physica. It is the tactus cordis, the touch of the heart of the creature by the Creator; it is the touch of the inmost spring of life by the indwelling Author of life. It belongs to God alone, and is as incomprehensible as the action of our mind on the body, which is analogous to it In 1 Cor. 3:6, St. Paul compares the factors of spiritual life with those of the growth of a plant: “I have planted, Apollo watered; but God gave the increase.” The planting and watering represent the external or moral motion; the life-power or vital energy of the plant is likened to the internal or physical motion.

VII. 1. Both of these motions act on the mind in order to generate knowledge conducive to moral actions. The former, however, only brings the mind in contact with its object; whereas the latter confers the power by which the object is illumined, and actually seized upon by the mind.

2. The moral motion directly touches the intellect only, and acts on the will only through the intellect. The physical motion, on the contrary, embraces both faculties, giving warmth and energy to the affections of the will as well as light to the intellect.

3. The moral motion is more like an instantaneous impulse; it does not accompany the action which it determines. But the physical motion acts continuously, conferring and upholding the working energy until the act is completed. The first “waters” the good deed; the second gives it life.

4. A last and most important difference between the two motions lies in the extent of their efficacy. God can supply the will with an unlimited amount of energy according to His own pleasure; He can thus enable it to perform acts of the highest moral worth; and, what is more, He can determine what each act shall be. In other words: the moral motion has an uncertain effect; the physical motion has an infallible effect.

VIII. God has not only the power of moving the will after the manner of created agents, i.e. from without; He also possesses, in an eminent way, that same power by which the will moves itself. Hence, when He, as the first cause, co-operates with the created free will, His co-operation is “a willing,” more powerful than the soul’s own. As the strong hand of the rider trains the wild horse to obey all its master’s wishes, so the Divine hand, mightily and sweetly, trains the human will to find pleasure in doing His will.