Читать книгу Grace, Actual and Habitual: A Dogmatic Treatise - Joseph Pohle - Страница 10

The capacity of nature in its own domain may be considered with regard either to the intellect or to the will.

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Thesis I: Man is capable by the natural power of his intellect to arrive at a knowledge of God from a consideration of the physical universe.

This proposition embodies an article of faith defined by the Vatican Council: “If any one shall say that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be certainly known by the natural light of human reason through created things, let him be anathema.”116

For a formal demonstration of this truth we must refer the reader to our treatise on God: His Knowability, Essence, and Attributes, pp. 17 sqq. The argument there given may be supplemented by the following considerations:

1. The Vatican Council vindicates the native power of the human intellect when it says: “The Catholic Church, with one consent, has ever held and does hold, that there is a twofold order of knowledge, distinct both in principle and in object: in principle, because our knowledge in the one is by natural reason, and in the other by divine faith; in object, because, besides those things to which natural reason can attain, there are proposed to our belief mysteries hidden in God, which, unless divinely revealed, cannot be known.”117 This teaching, which the [pg 052] Church had repeatedly emphasized on previous occasions against the scepticism of Nicholas de Ultricuria,118 the rationalistic philosophy of Pomponazzi, the “log-stick-and-stone” theory119 of Martin Luther, the exaggerations of the Jansenists, and the vagaries of the Traditionalists,120 is based on Revelation as well as on sound reason. Holy Scripture clearly teaches that we can gain a certain knowledge of God from a consideration of the created universe.121 Reason tells us that a creature endowed with intelligence must be capable of acquiring natural knowledge, and that supernatural faith is based on certain praeambula, which are nothing else than philosophical and historical truths.122 “The existence of God and other like truths,” says St. Thomas, “are not articles of faith, but preambles to the articles; for faith presupposes natural knowledge, even as grace presupposes nature, and perfection something that can be perfected.”123 Luther denounced reason as the most dangerous thing on earth, because “all its discussions and conclusions are as certainly false and erroneous as there is a God in Heaven.”124 The [pg 053] Church teaches, in accordance with sound philosophy and experience, that the original powers of human nature, especially free-will, though greatly weakened, have not been destroyed by original sin.125 The Scholastics, it is true, reckoned ignorance among the four “wounds of nature” inflicted by original sin.126 But this teaching must be regarded in the light in which the Church condemned Quesnel's proposition that “All natural knowledge of God, even that found in pagan philosophers, can come from nowhere else than God, and without grace produces nothing but presumption, vanity, and opposition against God Himself, instead of adoration, gratitude, and love.”127 The Traditionalist contention that the intrinsic weakness of the human intellect can be cured only by a primitive revelation handed down through the instrumentality of speech and instruction, or by a special interior illumination, involves the false assumption that there can be a cognitive faculty incapable of knowledge—which would ultimately lead to a denial of the essential distinction between nature and the supernatural, because it represents exterior revelation or interior grace as something positively due to fallen nature.128 Following the lead of St. Thomas,129 Catholic apologists, while maintaining the necessity of a [pg 054] supernatural revelation even with regard to the truths of natural religion and ethics, base their argument not on the alleged physical incapacity of reason to ascertain these truths, but on the moral impossibility (i.e. insuperable difficulty) of finding them unaided. “It is to be ascribed to this divine Revelation,” says the Vatican Council, “that such truths among things divine as are not of themselves beyond human reason, can, even in the present state of mankind, be known by every one with facility and firm assurance, and without admixture of error.”130 In conformity with the teaching of Revelation and Tradition, the Church has always sharply distinguished between πίστις and γνῶσις—faith and knowledge, revelation and philosophy—assigning to reason the double rôle of an indispensable forerunner and a docile handmaid of faith. Far from antagonizing reason, as charged by her enemies, the Church has on the contrary always valiantly championed its rights against Scepticism, Positivism, Criticism, Traditionalism, Rationalism, Pantheism, and Modernism.131

2. As regards those purely natural truths that constitute the domain of science and art, Catholic divines are practically unanimous132 in holding that, though man possesses the physical ability of knowing every single one of these truths, even the most highly gifted cannot master them all. Cardinal Mezzofanti had acquired a knowledge of many languages,133 and undoubtedly was capable [pg 055] of learning many more; yet without a special grace he could not have learned all the languages spoken on earth, though their number is by no means infinite. The science of mathematics, which embraces but a limited field of knowledge, comprises an indefinite number of propositions and problems which even the greatest genius can not master. Add to these impediments the shortness of human life, the limitations of the intellect, the multitude and intricacy of scientific methods, the inaccessibility of many objects which are in themselves knowable, (e.g. the interior of the earth, the stellar universe)—and you have a host of limitations which make it physically impossible for the mind of man to encompass the realm of natural truths.134

Thesis II: Fallen man, whether pagan or sinner, is able to perform some naturally good works without the aid of grace.

This thesis may be technically qualified as propositio certa.

Proof. A man performing moral acts may be either in a state of unbelief, or of mortal sin, or of sanctifying grace. The question here at issue is chiefly whether all the works of pagans, that is all acts done without grace of any kind, are morally bad, or whether any purely natural works may be good despite the absence of grace. Baius and Jansenius [pg 056] affirmed this; nay more, they asserted that no man can perform good works unless he is in the state of grace and inspired by a perfect love of God (caritas). If this were true, all the works of pagans and of such Christians as have lost the faith, would be so many sins. But it is not true. The genuine teaching of the Church may be gathered from her official condemnation of the twenty-fifth, the twenty-sixth, and the thirty-seventh propositions of Baius. These propositions run as follows: “Without the aid of God's grace free-will hath power only to sin;”135 “To admit that there is such a thing as a natural good, i.e. one which originates solely in the powers of nature, is to share the error of Pelagius;”136 “All the actions of unbelievers are sins and the virtues of philosophers vices.”137 To these we may add the proposition condemned by Pope Alexander VIII, that “The unbeliever necessarily sins in whatever he does.”138

1. Sacred Scripture and the Fathers, St. Augustine included, admit the possibility of performing naturally good, though unmeritorious, [pg 057] works (opera steriliter bona) in the state of unbelief; and their teaching is in perfect conformity with right reason.

a) Our Divine Lord Himself says:139 “If you love them that love you, what reward140 shall you have? Do not even the publicans this? And if you salute141 your brethren only, what do you more? Do not also the heathens142 this?” The meaning plainly is: To salute one's neighbor is an act of charity, a naturally good deed, common even among the heathens, and one which, not being done from a supernatural motive, deserves no supernatural reward. But this does not by any means imply that to salute one's neighbor is sinful.

St. Paul143 says: “For when the gentiles,144 who have not the law,145 do by nature146 those things that are of the law; these having not the law are a law to themselves: who shew the work of the law written in their hearts.” By “gentiles” the Apostle evidently means genuine heathens, not converts from paganism to Christianity, and hence the meaning of the passage is that the heathens who know the natural law embodied in the Decalogue only as a postulate of reason, are by nature147 able to “do those things that are of the law,”148 i.e. observe at least some of its precepts. That St. Paul did not think the gentiles capable of observing the whole law without the aid of grace appears from his denunciation of their folly, a little further up in the same Epistle: “Because that, [pg 058] when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened, etc.,”149 and also from the hypothetic form of Rom. II, 14 in the original Greek text: “Ὅταν γὰρ ἔθνη … τὰ τοῦ νόμου ποιῶσιν—Si quando gentes, … quae legis sunt, faciunt.”150

In Rom. XIV, 23: “For all that is not faith is sin,”151 a text often quoted against our thesis, “faith” does not mean the theological habit of faith, but “conscience,”152 as the context clearly shows.153

b) The teaching of the Fathers is in substantial harmony with Sacred Scripture.

α) Thus St. Jerome, speaking of the reward which Yahweh gave to Nabuchodonosor for his services against Tyre,154 says: “The fact that Nabuchodonosor was rewarded for a good work shows that even the gentiles in the judgment of God are not passed over without a reward when they have performed a good deed.”155 In his commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians the same holy Doctor observes: “Many who are without the faith and have not the Gospel of Christ, yet perform prudent and holy actions, [pg 059] e.g. by obeying their parents, succoring the needy, not oppressing their neighbors, not taking away the possessions of others.”156

β) The teaching of St. Augustine offers some difficulties. There can be no doubt that this Father freely admitted that pagans and infidels can perform naturally good works without faith and grace. Thus he says there is no man so wicked that some good cannot be found in him.157 He extols the moderation of Polemo158 and the purity of Alypius, who were both pagans.159 He admires the civic virtues of the ancient Romans,160 etc. Holding such views, how could Augustine write: “Neither doth free-will avail for anything except sin, if the way of truth is hidden.”161 And what did his disciple Prosper mean when he said: “The whole life of unbelievers is a sin, and nothing is good without the highest good. For wherever there is no recognition of the supreme and immutable truth, there can [pg 060] be no genuine virtue, even if the moral standard be of the highest.”162

To understand these and similar passages rightly and to explain at the same time how it was possible for Baius and Jansenius to bolster their heretical systems with quotations from the writings of St. Augustine and his disciples, it is necessary to observe that the quondam rhetorician and Platonic idealist of Hippo delights in applying to the genus the designation which belongs to its highest species, and vice versa.163 Thus, in speaking of liberty, he often means the perfect liberty enjoyed by our first parents in Paradise;164 in using the term “children of God” he designates those who persevere in righteousness;165 and in employing the phrase “a good work” he means one supernaturally meritorious. Or, vice versa, he designates the slightest good impulse of the will as “caritas,” as it were by anticipation, and brands every unmeritorious work (opus informe s. sterile) as false virtue (falsa virtus), nay sin (peccatum). To interpret St. Augustine correctly, therefore, allowance must be made for his peculiar idealism and a careful distinction drawn [pg 061] between the real and the metaphorical sense of the terms which he employs. Baius neglected this precaution and furthermore paid no attention to the controversial attitude of the holy Doctor. Augustine's peculiar task was not to maintain the possibility of naturally good works without faith and grace, but to defend against Pelagius and Julian the impossibility of performing supernaturally good and meritorious works without the aid of grace. It is this essential difference in their respective points of view that explains how St. Augustine and Baius were able to employ identical or similar terms to express radically different ideas.166

c) It can easily be demonstrated on theological grounds that fallen man is able, of his own initiative, i.e. without the aid of grace, to perform morally good works, and that Baius erred in asserting that this is impossible without theological faith.

α) With regard to the first-mentioned point it will be well, for the sake of clearness, to adopt Palmieri's distinction between physical and moral capacity.167 Man sins whenever he transgresses the law or yields to temptation. [pg 062] This would be impossible if he were physically unable to keep the whole law and resist temptation. Hence he must be physically able to do that which he is obliged to do under pain of sin, though in this or that individual instance the difficulties may be insuperable without the aid of grace. To put it somewhat differently: Baius and Jansenius hold that fallen man can perform no morally good works because of physical or moral impotence on the part of the will. This assumption is false. Man is physically able to perform good works because they are enjoined by the moral law of nature under pain of sin; he is morally able because, in spite of numerous evil tendencies, not a few gentiles and unbelievers have led upright lives and thereby proved that man can perform good works without the aid of grace.168 This is also the teaching of St. Thomas.169

β) It is an expressly defined dogma that the process of justification starts with theological faith (fides), preceded by the so-called grace of vocation, which prepares and effects conversion. To say, as Baius did, that all good works performed in a state of unbelief are so many sins, is tantamount to asserting that the preliminary acts leading up to faith, and which the unbeliever performs by the aid of prevenient grace, are sinful; in other words, that God requires the unbeliever to prepare himself for justification by committing sin. This is as absurd as it is heretical.170

The whole argument of this section applies a fortiori to [pg 063] the theory that no act can be morally good unless prompted by both theological charity and theological faith.171

2. We must now define the limitations of fallen nature unaided by grace. Though the graces dispensed by Providence even for naturally good deeds are in the present economy de facto nearly all supernatural, nothing prevents us from conceiving a different economy, consisting of purely natural helps, such as would have been necessary in the state of pure nature.172

As regards the limitations of man's moral power in the natural order, we may say, in a general way, that the will is able to keep the easier precepts of the moral law of nature without the assistance of grace (either supernatural or natural). However, as it is impossible in many instances to determine just where the easier precepts end and the more difficult ones begin, a broad field is left open for theological speculation.

a) Theologians are practically unanimous in holding that man cannot observe the natural law in its entirety for any considerable length of time without the aid of grace.

Suarez is so sure of this that he does not hesitate to denounce the contrary teaching—which is (perhaps unjustly) ascribed to Durandus, Scotus, and Gabriel Biel—as [pg 064] “rash and verging on error.”173 In matter of fact the Church has formally defined that, because of concupiscence, no one, not even the justified man, much less the sinner, is able, without divine assistance (grace), to keep for any considerable length of time the whole Decalogue, which embodies the essentials of the moral law. “Nevertheless,” says the Council of Trent, “let those who think themselves to stand take heed lest they fall, and with fear and trembling work out their salvation, … for … they ought to fear for the combat which yet remains with the flesh, with the world, with the devil, wherein they cannot be victorious unless they be with God's grace obedient to the Apostle, who says: ‘We are debtors, etc.’ ”174

St. Paul, who lived, so to speak, in an atmosphere of grace, yet found reason to exclaim: “I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inward man, but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members,”175 and: “Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord.”176 Surely it would be vain to expect the proud ideal of the Stoics or Pelagius' presumptuous claim of impeccability ever to be realized on earth except by a special privilege of grace, such as that bestowed upon the Blessed Virgin Mary.177

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The Fathers follow St. Paul in describing the power of concupiscence, even after justification.178

b) A pertinent question, closely allied to the proposition just treated, is this: Can the human will, without the aid of grace, overcome all the grievous temptations to mortal sin by which it is besieged?

It is the common teaching of theologians that, without the aid of grace, man in the fallen state succumbs with moral (not physical) necessity to grievous temptations against the moral law, i.e. to mortal sin. This conclusion flows from the impossibility, which we have demonstrated above, of observing the whole law of nature for life or for any considerable length of time without the help of grace. If man were able to resist all violent temptations, he would be able to keep the whole law.

The theological teaching which we are here expounding may be formulated in two different ways: (1) No man can overcome all grievous temptations against the moral law without the aid of grace; (2) there is no man living who is not now and then assailed by temptations to which he would inevitably succumb did not God lend him His assistance.

In its first and rather indefinite form the proposition is attacked by Ripalda,179 Molina,180 and many later Scholastics. These writers argue as follows: It is impossible to deduce from Revelation or experience a definite rule by which man could determine the conditions on which the grievousness of a temptation depends. To [pg 066] say that a temptation is grievous when it cannot be resisted without the aid of grace, would be begging the question. Besides, the possibility always remains that there be men who, though in theory unable to withstand all grievous temptations without the aid of grace, de facto never meet with such temptations, but only with the lighter kind which can be overcome without supernatural help.

The second and more specific formulation of our proposition is supported by Sacred Scripture, which explicitly declares that all men are subject to temptations which they could not resist if God did not uphold them.181

If the just are obliged to watch and pray constantly, lest they fall,182 this must be true in an even higher degree of sinners and unbelievers. St. Augustine writes against the Pelagians: “Faithful men say in their prayer: ‘Lead us not into temptation.’ But if they have the capacity [of avoiding evil], why do they pray [for it]? Or, what is the evil which they pray to be delivered from, but, above all else, the body of this death? … the carnal lusts, whence a man is liberated only by the grace of the Saviour. … He may be permitted to pray that he may be healed. Why does he presume so strongly on the capability of his nature? It is wounded, hurt, harassed, destroyed; what it stands in need of is a true confession [of its weakness], not a false defense [of its capacity].”183

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c) Another question, on which Catholic divines disagree, is this: Can fallen man, unaided by grace, elicit an act of perfect natural charity (amor Dei naturalis perfectus)?

Scotus answers this question affirmatively,184 and his opinion is shared by Cajetan,185 Bañez,186 Dominicus Soto,187 and Molina.188 Other equally eminent theologians, notably Suarez189 and Bellarmine,190 take the negative side.

In order to obtain a clear understanding of the question at issue we shall have to attend to several distinctions.

First and above all we must not lose sight of the important distinction between the natural and the supernatural love of God. Supernatural charity, in all its stages, necessarily supposes supernatural aid. The question therefore can refer only to the amor Dei naturalis.191 That this natural charity is no mere figment appears from the ecclesiastical condemnation of two propositions of Baius.192

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Another, even more important distinction is that between perfect and imperfect charity. Imperfect charity is the love of God as our highest good (amor Dei ut summum bonum nobis); perfect charity is the love of God for His own sake above all things (amor Dei propter se et super omnia). The holy Fathers and a number of councils193 declare that it is impossible to love God perfectly without the aid of grace. The context and such stereotyped explanatory phrases as “sicut oportet” or “sicut expedit ad salutem,”194 show that these Patristic and conciliary utterances apply to the supernatural love of God. Hence the question narrows itself down to this: Can fallen man without the aid of grace love God for His own sake and above all things by a purely natural love? In answering this question Pesch,195 Tepe,196 and other theologians distinguish between affective and effective love. They hold that whereas the amor affectivus in all its stages is possible without the aid of grace, not so the amor effectivus, since that would involve the observance of the whole natural law. This compromise theory can be demonstrated as highly probable from Scripture and Tradition. St. Paul says197 that the gentiles knew God and should have glorified Him. This evidently supposes that it was possible for them to glorify God, and consequently to love Him affectively, as easily and with the same means by which they knew Him. [pg 069] Else how could the Apostle say of those gentiles who, “when they knew God, glorified him not as God,” that they “changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator”?198 This interpretation of Rom. I, 21 sqq. is explicitly confirmed by St. Ambrose when he says: “For they were able to apprehend this by the law of nature, inasmuch as the fabric of the cosmos testifies that God, its author, is alone to be loved, as Moses hath set it down in his writings; but they were made impious by not glorifying God, and unrighteousness became evident in them when, knowing, they changed the truth into a lie and refused to confess the one God.”199

3. It follows, by way of corollary, that Vasquez's opinion,200 that there can be no good work without supernatural aid in the shape of a cogitatio congrua, is untenable, as is also the assertion of Ripalda201 that in the present economy purely natural good actions are so invariably connected with the prevenient grace of Christ that they practically never exist as such.

a) Vasquez, whose position in the matter is opposed by most other theologians, contends202 that no man can perform a good work or resist any temptation against the natural law (Decalogue) without the help of supernatural [pg 070] grace derived from the merits of Christ. To avoid the heretical extreme of Baianism, however, he makes a twofold limitation. He assumes with the Scotists that there is such a thing as a morally indifferent act of the will,203 and defines the grace which he holds to be necessary for the performance of every morally good deed, as cogitatio congrua. This “congruous thought,” he says, is in itself, i.e. ontologically, natural, and can be regarded as supernatural only quoad modum et finem. The subtle argument by which Vasquez tries to establish this thesis is based principally on St. Augustine and may be summarized as follows: Whenever the Fathers and councils insist on the necessity of grace for the performance of good works, they mean all good works, natural as well as supernatural. The only alternative they know is virtue or vice, good or evil. Consequently the grace of Christ, in some form or other, is a necessary requisite of all morally good deeds.

As we have already intimated, we regard this opinion of the learned Spanish divine as erroneous.204 Three solid reasons militate against it. The first is that, to guard against Baianism, Vasquez is compelled to assume the existence of morally indifferent acts of the will, which is untenable, as “St. Augustine and St. Thomas, and theologians generally teach that there is no such thing in the concrete as a morally indifferent act of the free will, and consequently, if the will is able, without grace, to perform acts that are not evil, it is also able [pg 071] to perform good acts.”205 Second, Vasquez's theory counterfeits the notion of Christian grace. “Good thoughts” come so natural to man, and are so closely bound up with the grace of creation, that even Pelagius found no difficulty in admitting this sort of “grace.”206 Surely fallen nature is not so utterly corrupt that a good child is unable to honor and love his parents without the aid of “grace” (in the sense of cogitatio congrua ex meritis Christi). The third reason which constrains us to reject Vasquez's theory, is that it leaves no room for natural morality (naturaliter honestum) to fill the void between those acts that are naturally bad (moraliter inhonesta, i.e. peccata) and such as are supernaturally good (supernaturaliter bona, i.e. salutaria). The existence of such naturally good acts would seem to be a highly probable inference from the condemnation, by Pius VI, of a certain proposition taught by the pseudo-Council of Pistoia.207

b) Martinez de Ripalda (+1648) tried to improve Vasquez's theory by restoring the Christian concept of grace and adding that Providence invariably precedes all naturally good works, including those performed by heathens and sinners, with the entitatively supernatural grace of illumination and confirmation.208 In this hypothesis [pg 072] the necessity of grace is not theological but purely historic.209

Despite the wealth of arguments by which Ripalda attempted to prove his theory,210 it has not been generally accepted. While some, e.g. Platel211 and Pesch,212 regard it with a degree of sympathy, others, notably De Lugo213 and Tepe,214 are strongly opposed to it. Palmieri thinks it may be accepted in a restricted sense, i.e. when limited to the faithful.215

Ripalda's hypothesis of the universality of grace is truly sublime and would have to be accepted if God's salvific will could be demonstrated by revelation or some historic law to suffer no exceptions. But Ripalda has not been able to prove this from Revelation.216 Then, too, his theory entails two extremely objectionable conclusions: (1) a denial, not indeed of the possibility (Quesnel), but of the existence of purely natural good works, and (2) the possibility of justification without theological faith. Neither of these difficulties probably occurred to Vasquez [pg 073] or Ripalda,217 because at the time when they wrote Pius VI had not yet condemned the teaching of the pseudo-Council of Pistoia,218 nor had Innocent XI censured the proposition that “Faith in a broad sense, as derived from the testimony of creatures or some other similar motive, is sufficient for justification.”219 If the love of God, even perfect love, (such as we have shown to be possible in the natural order), were of itself necessarily supernatural, as Ripalda contends, it would be possible for a pagan to receive the grace of justification without theological faith, which he does not possess, as is evident from the Vatican teaching that it is “requisite for divine faith that revealed truth be believed because of the authority of God who reveals it.”220

Thesis III: Not all actions performed by man in the state of mortal sin are sinful on account of his not being in the state of grace.

This is de fide.

Proof. Though this thesis is, strictly speaking, included in Thesis II, it must be demonstrated separately on its own merits, because it embodies [pg 074] a formally defined dogma which has been denied by the Protestant Reformers and by the followers of Baius and Jansenius. Martin Luther taught—and his teaching was adopted in a modified form by the Calvinists—that human nature is entirely depraved by original sin, and consequently man necessarily sins in whatever he does,221 even in the process of justification. Against this heresy the Tridentine Council defined: “If any one shall say that all the works done before justification … are indeed sins, … let him be anathema.”222

The Protestant notion of grace was reduced to a theological system by Baius223 and Jansenius,224 whose numerous errors may all be traced to their denial of the supernatural order.

The Jansenist teaching was pushed to an extreme by Paschasius Quesnel, 101 of whose propositions were formally condemned by Pope Clement XI in his famous Constitution “Unigenitus.”225 The Jansenistic teachings of the Council of Pistoia were censured by Pius VI, AD 1794, in his Bull “Auctorem fidei.” The quintessence of this heretical system is embodied in the proposition [pg 075] that whatever a man does in the state of mortal sin is necessarily sinful for the reason that he is not in the state of grace (status caritatis). Baius226 and Quesnel227 gave this teaching an Augustinian turn by saying that there is no intermediate state between the love of God and concupiscence, and that all the works of a sinner must consequently and of necessity be sinful. This heretical teaching is sharply condemned in the Bull “Auctorem fidei.”228 Quesnel pushed it to its last revolting conclusion when he said: “The prayer of the wicked is a new sin, and that God permits it is but an additional judgment upon them.”229

The teaching of Baius and Quesnel is repugnant to Revelation and to the doctrine of the Fathers.

a) The Bible again and again exhorts sinners to repent, to pray for forgiveness, to give alms, etc. Cfr. Ecclus. XXI, 1: “My son, thou hast sinned? Do so no more: but for thy former sins also pray that they may be forgiven thee.” Ezech. XVIII, 30: “Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities: and iniquity shall not [pg 076] be your ruin.” Dan. IV, 24: “Redeem thou thy sins with alms, and thy iniquities with works of mercy to the poor: perhaps he will forgive thy offences.” Zach. I, 3: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Turn ye to me, saith the Lord of hosts: and I will turn to you.” If all the works thus enjoined were but so many sins, we should be forced to conclude, on the authority of Sacred Scripture, that God commands the sinner to commit new iniquities and that the process of justification with its so-called dispositions consists in a series of sinful acts. Such an assumption would be manifestly absurd and blasphemous.

Quesnel endeavored to support his heretical conceit by Matth. VII, 17 sq.: “Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit; a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit.” But as our Lord in this passage speaks of prophets, the fruits he has in mind must obviously be doctrines not works.230 And what if they were works? Are not doctrines and morals ultimately related, and may we not infer from the lives they lead (according to their doctrines) whether prophets are true or false? By their fruits (i.e. works) you shall know them (i.e. the soundness or unsoundness of the teaching upon which their works are based).

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b) In appealing to the testimony of the Fathers the Jansenists were notoriously guilty of misinterpretation.

α) Origen plainly teaches that prayer before justification is a good work. “Though you are sinners,” he says, “pray to God; God hears the sinners.”231 The seemingly contradictory text John IX, 31: “Now we know that God doth not hear sinners,”232 is thus explained by St. Augustine: “He speaks as one not yet anointed; for God also hears the sinners. If He did not hear sinners, the publican would have cast his eyes to the ground in vain and vainly struck his breast saying: O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”233 Moreover, since there is question here of extraordinary works and signs only (viz. miracles), the text is wholly irrelevant in regard to works of personal righteousness. St. Prosper teaches: “Human nature, created by God, even after its prevarication, retains its substance, form, life, senses, and reason, and the other goods of body and soul, which are not lacking even to those who are bad and vicious. But there is no possibility of seizing the true good by such things as may adorn this mortal life, but cannot give [merit] eternal life.”234

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β) Baius and Quesnel succeeded in veiling their heresy by a phraseology of Augustinian color but with implications foreign to the mind of the Doctor of Grace. Augustine emphasized the opposition between “charity” and “concupiscence” so strongly that the intermediary domain of naturally good works was almost lost to view. Thus he says in his Enchiridion: “Carnal lust reigns where there is not the love of God.”235 And in his treatise on the Grace of Christ: “Here there is no love, no good work is reckoned as done, nor is there in fact any good work, rightly so called; because whatever is not of faith is sin, and faith worketh by love.”236 And again in his treatise on Grace and Free Will: “The commandments of love or charity are so great and such, that whatever action a man may think he does well, is by no means well done if done without charity.”237 We have purposely chosen passages in which the “Doctor of Grace” obviously treats of charity as theological love, not in the broad sense of dilectio.238 At first blush these passages seem to agree with the teaching of Baius, who says: “Every love on the part of a rational creature is either sinful cupidity, by which the world is loved, and which is forbidden by St. John, or that praiseworthy charity which is infused into the heart by the Holy Spirit, and by which we love God;”—239 and with the forty-fifth [pg 079] proposition of Quesnel: “As the love of God no longer reigns in the hearts of sinners, it is necessary that carnal lust should reign in them and vitiate all their actions.”240 Yet the sense of these propositions is anything but Augustinian. Augustine upholds free-will in spite of grace and concupiscence, whereas the Jansenists assert that the carnalis cupiditas and the caritas dominans produce their effects by the very power of nature, i.e. necessarily and of themselves.241

Besides this capital difference there are many minor discrepancies between the teaching of St. Augustine and that of Baius and Quesnel. Augustine, it is true, in his struggle with Pelagianism,242 strongly emphasized the opposition existing between grace and sin, between love of God and love of the world; but he never dreamed of asserting that every act performed in the state of mortal sin is sinful for the reason that it is not performed in the state of grace. Scholasticism has long since applied the necessary corrective to his exaggerations. It is perfectly orthodox to say that there is an irreconcilable opposition between the state of mortal sin and the state of grace. “No one can serve two masters.”243 This is not, however, by any means equivalent to saying, as the Jansenists do, that the sinner, not being in the state of grace, of necessity sins in whatever he does. Augustine expressly admits that, no matter how deeply God may allow a man to fall, and no matter how strongly concupiscence may dominate his will, he is yet able to pray for grace, which is in itself a distinctly salutary [pg 080] act. “If a sin is such,” he says in his Retractationes, “that it is itself a punishment for sin, what can the will under the domination of cupidity do, except, if it be pious, to pray for help?”244 Compare this sentence with the fortieth proposition of Baius: “The sinner in all his actions serves the lust which rules him,”245 and you will perceive the third essential difference that separates the teaching of St. Augustine from that of the Jansenists. The former, even when he speaks, not of the two opposing habits, but of their respective acts, does not, like Jansenism, represent the universality of sin without theological charity as a physical and fundamental necessity, but merely as a historical phenomenon which admits of exceptions. Thus he writes in his treatise On the Spirit and the Letter: “If they who by nature do the things contained in the law, must not be regarded as yet in the number of those whom Christ's grace justifies, but rather as among those whose actions (although they are those of ungodly men who do not truly and rightly worship the true God) we not only cannot blame, but actually praise, and with good reason, and rightly too, since they have been done, so far as we read or know or hear, according to the rule of righteousness; though were we to discuss the question with what motive they are done, they would hardly be found to be such as to deserve the praise and defense which are due to righteous conduct.”246

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In conclusion we will quote a famous passage from St. Augustine which reads like a protest against the distortions of Baius and Jansenius. “Love,” he says, “is either divine or human; human love is either licit or illicit. … I speak first of licit human love, which is free from censure; then, of illicit human love, which is damnable; and in the third place, of divine love, which leads us to Heaven. … You, therefore, have that love which is licit; it is human, but, as I have said, licit, so much so that, if it were lacking, [the want of] it would be censured. You are permitted with human love to love your spouse, your children, your friends and fellow-citizens. But, as you see, the ungodly, too, have this love, e.g. pagans, Jews, heretics. Who among them does not love his wife, his children, his brethren, his neighbors, his relations and friends? This, therefore, is human love. If any one would be so unfeeling as to lose even human love, not loving his own children, … we should no longer regard him as a human being.”247 Tepe pertinently observes248 that St. Augustine in this passage asserts not only the possibility but the actual existence of naturally good though unmeritorious works (opera steriliter [pg 082] bona), and that the theory of Ripalda249 is untenable for this reason, if for no other, that the quoted passage is cited in Pius VI's Bull “Auctorem fidei.”250