Aquinas and Justification?

[Vinny213]

Has anyone here read Aquinas’s commentators on the effects of grace in his summa? I ask this because he says that Justification happens in an instant in this section instead of a process. This what he says, *On the contrary, The justification of the ungodly is caused by the justifying grace of the Holy Spirit. Now the Holy Spirit comes to men’s minds suddenly, according to Acts 2:2: “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a mighty wind coming,” upon which the gloss says that “the grace of the Holy Ghost knows no tardy efforts.” Hence the justification of the ungodly is not successive, but instantaneous. * I want to know if he is only talking about initial justification or justification in general?

 

[mrpaul1962]

While I am not an Aquinas scholar, my guess would be he is talking about initial justification. He specifies he is talking about the Justification of the ungodly, rather than the increase in justice that the person in a state of grace can receive by cooperating with God. The transition from ungodliness to being made just refers to initial justification. From there we can and should increase in justice by cooperating with grace.

 

[Vinny213]

Do you know anyone on catholic answers who knows quite a bit on Aquinas who can help me with my question? I also noticed that Aquinas distinguished between infused righteousness which is the formal cause of our justification and acquired righteousness which we develop in progressive justification.