Nita, the canon you are quoting is a condemnation of the Protestant doctrine of forensic justification, which would deny that there is any ontological change in the soul proper to justification. The admittance of any kind of “effect” in the soul resulting from justification excludes the this canon’s condemnation.
Of course, I know that. But contained in that condemnation is what cannot be excluded - what therefore must be included in justification, “the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, and is inherent in them;”
I would say that sanctifying grace is “just” an effect in our soul in that samctifying grace is an effect in our soul and therenis nothing belonging to sanctifying grace that is not an effect in our soul. This is according to the definition of sanctifying grace as habitual grace. This in no way contradicts that sanctifying grace is a “participation in the life of God.”
What I was addressing was Conte’s post which to me implied no relationship between or involvement of the Divine Nature in the meaning of sanctifying grace; like the words “Divine Nature” should not be used at all in defining sanctifying grace. (And I am well aware of the distinction between the gift and the giver.)
I found the entry on sanctifying grace in the Encyclopedia very good.
newadvent.org/cathen/06701a.htm
- The climax of the presentation of the nature of sanctifying grace is found in its character as a participation in the Divine nature, which in a measure indicates its specific difference. To this undeniable fact of the supernatural participation in the Divine nature is our attention directed not only by the express words of Holy Writ: ut efficiamini divinae consortes naturae (2 Peter 1:4), but also by the Biblical concept of “the issue and birth from God”, since the begotten must receive of the nature of the progenitor, though in this case it only holds in an accidental and analogical sense. Since this same idea has been found in the writings of the Fathers, and is incorporated in the liturgy of the Mass, to dispute or reject it would be nothing short of temerity. It is difficult to excogitate a manner (modus) in which this participation of the Divine nature is effected. Two extremes must be avoided, so that the truth will be found.
An exaggerated theory was taught by certain mystics and quietists, a theory not free from pantheiotic taint. In this view the soul is formally changed into God, an altogether untenable and impossible hypothesis, since concupiscence remains even after justification, and the presence of concupiscence is, of course, absolutely repugnant to the Divine nature.
Another theory, held by the Scotists, teaches that the participation is merely of a moral-juridical nature, and not in the least a physical participation. But since sanctifying grace is a physical accident in the soul, one cannot help referring such participation in the Divine nature to a physical and interior assimilation with God, by virtue of which we are permitted to share those goods of the Divine order to which God alone by His own nature can lay claim. In any event the “participatio divinae naturae” is not in any sense to be considered a deification, but only a making of the soul “like unto God”. To the difficult question: Of which special attribute of God does this participation partake? Theologians can answer only by conjectures. Manifestly only the communicable attributes can at all be considered in the matter, wherefore Gonet (Clyp. thomist., IV, ii, x) was clearly wrong when he said that the attribute of participation was the aseitas, absolutely the most incommunicable of all the Divine attributes. Ripalda (loc. cit., disp. xx; sect. 14) is probably nearer the truth when he suggests Divine sanctity as the attribute, for the very idea of sanctifying grace brings the sanctity of God into the foreground.
- just that it was with the current threads (due to Leo Domitor’s post).