grace

grace. In Christian theology, the supernatural assistance of God bestowed upon a rational being with a view to his sanctification. While the need for this aid is generally admitted, the manner of it has been the subject of much discussion.

The theology of grace first emerged clearly in the controversy between St Augustine and Pelagius. Augustine regarded man, since the Fall, as totally evil and deserving of damnation; by himself fallen man could only sin, and grace was necessary for the performance of all good actions. Pelagius, on the other hand, held that man was free to choose the good and able to take the initial steps to salvation by his own efforts; grace was given that the commands of God might be more easily fulfilled. Though the logical inference of Augustine's teaching was predestination to damnation as well as to salvation, he himself sought to safeguard man's free will by various distinctions such as that between prevenient grace (i.e. grace antecedent to conversion) and subsequent grace, in which the Divine energy co-operates with man after his conversion. No such systematic development took place in the E. Church which continued to emphasize both the necessity of grace and the reality of human free will, and resisted the notion of predestination. Such ideas are reflected in the teaching of John Cassian, whose doctrine of grace was seen in the W. as an attempt to mediate between Augustine and Pelagius, and hence dubbed ‘Semipelagianism’. Cassian, while accepting Augustine's teaching on original sin, rejected total depravity, irresistible grace, and unconditional predestination. Though grace was universally necessary, the will remained free at all stages. The Second Council of Orange (529) attempted to settle the question on an Augustinian basis, with modifications; prevenient grace was held to be rendered necessary by the Fall, but emphasis was laid on human co-operation after conversion, and predestination to damnation was anathematized. The debate on the relationship of grace and free will continued, becoming acute in the controversy surrounding Gottschalk. In the 13th cent. St * Thomas Aquinas distinguished ‘habitual grace’ (which is held to be normally conveyed through the Sacraments), from ‘actual grace’ (which may exist in the unbaptized), while Duns Scotus emphasized the timelessness of God in relation to the theology of grace. The Reformers returned to a more rigid August-inianism. J. Calvin taught absolute predestination and added the doctrine of the indefectibility of grace. This teaching was challenged by J. Arminius and his followers (see ARMINIANISM). In the post-Reformation RC Church there have been two main controversies, that associated with the teaching of L. de Molina and the Jansenist controversy.

The exact relationship between the giving of grace and the reception of the Sacraments has given rise to similar problems. In the 20th cent. there were various attempts to cut through the complexities of the W. doctrine of grace, including the assertion of the primacy of the notion of uncreated grace (the Holy Spirit Himself) over the various classifications of created grace (the effects of the Spirit's operation).