Posted on 07/18/2012 11:52:29 AM PDT by Salvation
by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. The most radical and fundamental and radical effect of sanctifying grace seems to be deification. Sanctifying grace deifies the soul, renders it deiform, godlike in a wondrous way, partaker of the divine nature. Can this really be true? The sources of revelation are clear. In the words of St. Peter, "By whom (Christ) He (the Father) hath given us great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1,4). St. John tells of being “born again of God" (John 1,13; 3,3) and to be born again implies receiving another nature – supernatural nature – of God. St. Paul says we are saved "through the bath of regeneration … by the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3,5). As a human nature is the term of natural generation, this regeneration would imply another nature – a super-nature – of the Holy Spirit. Again and again the Fathers declare that man is "deified" by sanctifying grace. St. Augustine: "He who justifies, also deifies, because He makes (men) sons of God through justification." St. Cyril of Alexandria: "Partakers of the divine nature, not only in name but in reality." And St. Thomas: "the only begotten Son of God, desiring that we should be participants in His divinity, assumed our nature: ut homines deos faceret, factus homo"(Opusculum, 57). Deification. What does this deification mean? Catholic theology has always held that it is no mere figure of speech but the declaration of a mysterious fact: we are in a true sense made partakers of the divine nature by sanctifying grace. Obviously by this deification man does not become God; he is not transformed into God. A few medieval "mystics" taught that sanctifying grace transforms the human soul into the substance of the God-head, but this doctrine was condemned. Sanctifying grace is not God, nor "part" of God, nor "part of God's nature" (there are no parts in God Who is utterly simple): hence it does not and can not identify us with God, make us God in any way. It is something produced by God, really distinct from God. My sanctifying grace is mine, "created" (i.e. produced) for me "educed from the potency of my soul," an accident that inheres in my substance. Hence if I commit a mortal sin, my sanctifying grace is "reduced to the potency of my soul" so to speak, i.e. goes out of actual existence by God’s withdrawal of His conservation. Deiform nature. But though sanctifying grace is not God nor God's nature, it gives me such an amazing, supernatural likeness to God, to God's own intimate nature, that it can truly be said to "deify" me. It gives me not God's own divine nature (only the three divine Persons can ever have this), but a godlike nature, a deiform nature. Some theologians have even said that by sanctifying grace our souls are made a "miniature Trinity." What is nature? The ultimate and basic principle of operation. The nature of God is the ultimate principle of divine operations. Angels have an angelic nature: the ultimate principle of doing angelic actions in an angelic way. Men have a human nature: an ultimate principle of doing human things in a human way. The Indwelling Trinity is the very divine nature itself specially present in us (as principle and term of sanctifying grace); sanctifying grace in us is our share in the divine nature, our likeness to It. It must somehow do for us what the divine nature does for God. If God’s nature is the ultimate principle of all divine operations, it is the ultimate principle of God’s own Beatific Vision, love and enjoyment of the divine essence. But our sanctifying grace also is an ultimate principle of the Beatific Vision: therefore it is a likeness to the divine nature, a godlike nature, a deiform nature. We have an ultimate principle of operation in God. I have in me now an ultimate principle of that divine operation called the Beatific Vision, its love and enjoyment, which God has infinitely but which I shall have finitely. Once again, the Beatific Vision, love and enjoyment, is the key, as we said in the beginning. Sanctifying grace is made for it; by sanctifying grace we have a claim and title and an ultimate proportion to the Beatific Vision, love and enjoyment. The change in heaven is that faith goes out and the light of glory comes in. Sanctifying grace sets one for eternity: it can grow and grow in an adult so as to bring him a greater and greater degree of the light of glory and the love and enjoyment of the Beatific Vision, if he dies in sanctifying grace. Nature. Is an ultimate principle always a nature? The term "essence" is also used to designate an ultimate principle; but the nature of a being is the essence considered as a principle of operation, considered as the ultimate principle in the order of activity. Essence rather connotes something static, nature something dynamic. Will the Beatific Vision, love and enjoyment, ultimately "flow out of" sanctifying grace? Yes. It does not actually "flow out" here and now, because we lack the necessary proximate principle of the Beatific Vision, love and enjoyment, the light of glory. Similarly, in us every thought flows from the soul through the intellect, every will-act through the will, every sensation through the sense-faculties. What thinks? The sup posit, the person, ultimately through the soul and proximately through the intellect. In us, the thinking power must have a properly disposed thinking apparatus: a person with defective material organs or connections in certain areas will find his thinking ability impaired or completely inhibited. Children born with such deficiencies could get sanctifying grace by baptism and (perhaps) by Confirmation got an increase of it; they could not lose sanctifying grace but they could not merit an increase of it or of light of glory. Deiform Nature. A parallel between our human nature and deiform nature may be helpful. In a human nature, the soul, the form of the body, is the ultimate operative principle. From this ultimate operative principle flow all the powers of the soul, the faculties, which are the proximate operative principles. Instincts we may call proximate or immediate responsive principles. Flowing from all these principles are human acts. Man is made to act, to be more fully man by using his powers; his nature is dynamic, and he becomes more fully man by acting as man. But this is not enough, For God wanted man to live a deiform life. For this he needs an ultimate deiform principle of operation: sanctifying grace. All proximate principles of deiform operation "flow from" it, We may think of sanctifying grace as something very like a human nature, but, it is a super-nature (in the form of an accident). Moreover, in the very heart of our natural faculties, flowing from this super-nature, will be deiform faculties, the infused virtues, enabling the deiform man to place the deiform acts that God wants. The gifts of the Holy Spirit act as immediate responsive principles; they are, so to speak, supernatural instincts giving seven kinds of "instinctive" response to the special stimuli sent by the Holy Spirit when He wants the operative powers to go into special, more prompt, higher, more deiform action.
Human Nature Deiform Nature When a man responds promptly and habitually to every stimulus of the Holy Spirit, we may say he is in the class of the "perfect:" habitually he acts when and as the Holy Spirit wants him to act. He is under the habitual direction of the Holy Spirit; he is no longer guided just by the slow, fallible direction of human reason, which so often sees many obstacles to action and therefore delays, and so some of the finest acts God wishes never get done. In the Gospel we read that Our Lord was "led by the Spirit" into the desert, and St. Paul was told to go here… there… he had a new Leader. Evidently many people do not always follow His lead, do not respond quickly to His promptings. What makes this quick response easier, more habitual? Practice! This means achieving docility to the Holy Spirit, a fuller practice of the moral virtues, especially of temperance, so as to temper fear - of human respect, of new actions, of more perfect actions. Sometimes it seems that we can judge the spiritual growth of another in terms of his response to grace -- quick and perfect -- or slow -- or no response -- or indecision -- or fear of response. As a matter of experience, we often learn to make the right responses only after making the wrong ones. We like to call this "growing up in Christ" -- into perfectly deiform human beings. God puts sanctifying grace deep down inside us. As if He would say: do not develop your natural powers alone: by the sanctifying grace that is permeating you, you are made deiform, so use your natural and deiform powers together, deiformly. If you want greater union with Me, you will find it through quicker, surer, and more perfect response to the directive inspiration of the Holy Spirit. His inspirations are meant for "now", this moment, this place, this need. "Do not wait or argue, do right now what He is urging you to do." In the lives of saints we see that often there was no time lag between the stimulus of the Holy Spirit and their response. There are two powers in us: a power to say Yes to the Holy Spirit when He is drawing us to greater perfection, and a power to say No. Our model is Christ who said always: "Thy will he done," to show us the Way of perfect docility. And our Blessed Mother, whose "fiat" at Nazareth characterized her whole life. If we want a test or norm of sanctity, we have it in this responsiveness to the inspirations of God. Deiform Activity. What kind of activity would come from our natural powers alone? Natural activity (good or sinful). What kind comes from our deiform powers? Deiform activity, so that persons in grace place actions which are truly like God's. God's infinite Beatific Vision of the divine essence is a strictly divine activity. But the finite Beatific Vision of the divine essence -- that the blessed in heaven have -- is an activity like God's very own. Hence the Beatific Vision of the blessed is the supremely deiform activity. Since sanctifying grace is the radical principle of this activity, we call sanctifying grace a deiform principle. And any earthly activity that flows from this principle (sanctifying grace) and condignly merits the Beatific Vision we also call, and properly, a deiform activity. Such are all the condignly meritorious acts of the just -- which flow from sanctifying grace through the infused virtues - and gifts. Such would seem to be, in a minimal sense, even their imperfections, for if these are not sins then they would seem to be -- for St. Thomas -- meritorious. Highest among these deiform acts on earth would be the mystical acts of the saints, their infused contemplation or experimental knowledge and love of divine realities -- an earthly foretaste of the heavenly Beatific Vision and love of the divine essence itself. In studying this deiform activity, it may help to distinguish four phases; one heavenly phase; the beatific; and. three earthly phases, the incipient, the proficient, the perfect. Phases of Earthly Deiform Activity. We cannot hope, of course, to gauge with any accuracy the deiformity of any particular individual. But in a more general way, it seems that the deiformity of persons in grace can be measured to some extent by the habitual perfection of certain things, such as the actual graces given them, or their charity, their prayer, their docility to the Holy Spirit, their self-abnegation. Thus for the “incipients” (those in the purgative way), actual graces will be largely "purgative" graces (initially at least), aimed at purging them more and more from inordinate attachments; for the "proficients" they, will largely be "illuminative" graces, aimed at illumining Christ and His virtues so as to procure their imitation; for the "perfect" they will largely be "unitive" graces, aimed at uniting their minds and wills more and more closely with God’s and with God. Or we might say that for the incipient graces are aimed at preventing mortal sin and overcoming its attraction; for the proficient, they are aimed at preventing deliberate venial sin and overcoming its attractions; for the perfect, they are aimed at preventing positive imperfections (e.g. violations of counsels and religious rules). In terms of docility we might say that the incipient are docile to God in the matter of the major commandments, the proficient are docile also in the matter of the minor commandments, while the perfect are docile also in the matter of the counsels and beatitudes. In terms of Christ, we could say that He is in the mind of the incipient at times, but not often, in the mind of the proficient much more; in the minds of the perfect, habitually, as a moving, guiding factor. Again, in the incipient there is initial self-abnegation, in the proficient, progressive self-abnegation, in the perfect, complete self-abnegation. In the incipient there will be incipient charity, in the proficient, proficient charity, in the perfect, perfect charity. For the incipient, deliberate, conscious acts of love of God and neighbor may be infrequent and mild in intensity; for the proficient more frequent and greater in intensity; for the perfect, they may be practically habitual, exclude no neighbor, be very intense. In the incipient, there will be affective love and the beginnings of truly effective love of God and neighbor; in the proficient there will be a much more effective love, moving into better action and -- sacrifice, which is the real test; in the perfect, effective love will be relatively perfect, and will mean a complete surrender to God's will so as to do whatever God wants, whenever, wherever, however He wants it. Charity, love of God and neighbor, is the best test of deiformity; by the extension, intensity and effectiveness of their charity you shall know them -- and their degree of deiformity. What counts is not affective love alone; this is not enough for married life or for religious life, either, for it can be very selfish. What counts is the affective-effective love that say's, "I love You so much that I will do whatever You want, whenever You want it." To do out of love whatever God wills, as soon as He wills it, and just as He wills it: this is highest perfection, highest deiformity. The incipient achieves this now and then, the proficient much more often, the perfect practically always. For the incipient, love of God and neighbor is often verbal or mental, but not so much a matter of full doing or deeds. The function of grace is gradually to change these more or less verbal velleities into actions of highest love. The prayer of the incipient is predominantly vocal and mental discursive prayer. The prayer of the proficient is largely affective, more a prayer of loving than of thinking; it does not bother much with reasoning but quickly goes to loving, either with or without words of love. In the perfect we find contemplative prayer (acquired, infused or both) which on its highest levels involves an ineffable "experience" of God's presence and an "experimental" perception of divine mysteries and realities, Of all these qualities, which is looked at most carefully in canonizations? Charity, it seems. Proof of infused contemplation does not seem to be demanded, But heroic virtue is demanded of those not martyrs. A person must have practiced (demonstrably) faith, hope and charity and the moral virtues to a heroic degree and habitually for a sufficiently long time. Such a one gradually came to place arduous acts of virtue easily and habitually, spontaneously, joyfully, because by repetition such acts had become a kind of "second nature." Sometimes the heroicity of faith and hope may be somewhat hard to prove directly; it can be proved indirectly from a long exercise of charity in an heroic degree. Charity is thus the norm as well as the essence of perfection and charity. Is all heroic virtue canonizable? Usually the Church canonizes only those whose heroic virtue has a certain resplendence, such that it can be seen and recognized by the faithful, influence them and serve as a model for at least partial imitation. She does this when God by miracles gives a sign that He wants a canonization. For most Christians (also called to be saints), their immediate task is to become as deiform as possible by avoiding more and more deliberate sins and imperfections, by intensifying their love of God and neighbor, by growing more and more in prayerful union with God, by living out more and more perfectly during each day the offering made to the Sacred Heart that morning -- of all their prayers, works, suffering and joys of the day -- for the greater glory of God and the greater deiformity of all men.Course on Grace
Part Two - A
Grace Considered IntensivelyChapter IX.
Sharing the Divine Nature by Sanctifying Grace
Soul
Ultimate operative principle
Sanctifying Grace
Faculties
Proximate operative principles
Infused Virtues
Instincts
Immediate responsive principles
Gifts of Holy Spirit
Human Acts
Effects
Deiform Acts
Complete title:
Course on Grace: Grace Considered Intensively, Sharing the Divine Nature by Sanctifying Grace [Cath & Open]
Catholic Ping!
Tragically the Roman take on this leads the sheeple off the cliff. The “sharing” which Peter refers to (konoinos) simply means “partaking”, the way I might partake of a sandwich. I don’t become a sandwich or even like a sandwich by partaking. I am benefitted by the sandwich, fed, nourished, but not like it.
The Scriptures clearly tell us as believers we have a part with Christ, and be indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but we do not, repeat do not, become “deified” or anything close. This is another fallacious construct of Rome.
Are you saying that you never invite anyone to your house to partake of your graciousness for a barbecue, family reunion, Thanksgiving or Christmas Dinner?
That’s what this sharing is about.
Sharing the gifts that God has given you. Do you lead a Bible Study, partake in a Bible Study? Then you would be sharing these God-given gifts of grace.
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Beginning Catholic: The Eucharist: In the Presence of the Lord Himself [Ecumenical]
Beginning Catholic: Receiving the Lord in Holy Communion [Ecumenical]
Beginning Catholic: The Sacrament of Reconciliation: Rising Again to New Life [Ecumenical]
Beginning Catholic: The Anointing of the Sick: Comfort and Healing [Ecumenical]
Beginning Catholic: The Sacrament of Holy Orders: Priests of the New Sacrifice [Ecumenical]
Beginning Catholic: Catholic Marriage: A Union Sealed by the Sacrament of Matrimony [Ecumenical]
“Hail, Full of Grace" (Catholic)
Grace is Dark Matter
After originally saying that grace does not make one into God, the author of your article says the above. Sorry, his claim is not true. We are not "miniature Trinitys" or anything close. We are still broken men/women rescued by Grace, awaiting our final redemption. At that time we shall be remade into godly beings, from whom praise will erupt "naturally" and we will reflect His glory, unimpeded.
Sharing the Scriptures with someone, teaching a study, are all requests that have been made of us while we wait. Actually, we should all be ready, "...in and out of season to explain the hope within." Had the writer stopped here, fine. But, read the entire article. He goes off the rails.
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