Casey asked what grace was. I want to look at is a series of posts different views of grace, starting with the Catholic version. This is a short overview taken from a non-Catholic scholar, Gareth Reese, a Restorationist Theologian. I have tried to make a condensed version of his synopsis here. Since I am not that familiar with Catholic theology, I will make any amendments that are needed.
In Roman Catholic Theology (RCT) the fall disabled the image of God in humans. The image of God is the divine attributes of the soul given to humans in Adam and Eve. Among the divine powers and virtues are not the will and reason. They are natural attributes of humans and not supernatural ones. Sanctifying grace is something that God does to a human. It is the infusion of the divine powers and virtues back into the human. It is a permanent effect of God on the human. It gives the person the ability to perform supernatural actions. Hope, love, and faith are three virtues that are infused by this type of Grace. This restores humans back to the pre-fall condition.
Actual grace is help by God that allows the soul to preform an action or make a turn of the will. Two sub-types of this grace are Efficacious and Sufficient. Efficacious grace is a form of actual grace that is necessarily followed by an “effect for which it was intended.” Another form of actual grace is Sufficient Grace that is not efficacious because of the possible resistance of the recipient. When the grace cannot be resisted by a human’s will, it is called irresistible grace. Prevenient grace aids the will in having faith. When God helps a person in their (willful) struggle to become a stronger Christian, this is termed co-operative grace.
Source: Gareth Reese, New Testament Epistles:Romans, p 47-48
3 Comments
Dude, as a Protestant, Catholic theology is very weird and I wonder how many Catholics really know what their church believes. I am talking about these different aspects of grace and indulgences and the sacraments and all of that (I’m not knocking any Catholic; some of my closest friends are Catholic; I am just curious).
Well, I think a lot of denominations find the other denominations theories of the outworkings of the gospel very weird. Often we just hear about the odd points and that is what we take with us, the difference rather than the points of similarity.
1) It is hard to take the time to fully understand those point of difference
2) It is easy to take those points and run with them.
I agree totally. The Mormon Missionaries I spoke with think the Trinity to be utterly unfathomable. But I am curious about how much of their own denominational theology do people know.