Faith is Grace

[TimothyH]

So “grace” has nothing to do any action of ours and “a grace” is dependent on the grace that comes from God but is intertwined with our own actions, which are also dependent on the grace that comes from God?

That makes sense (I think) but I wonder if using a completely different word would be less confusing instead of using the same word preceded by an article.

Faith is a grace because we can’t have it without God acting. The same goes for all the virtues. But God acts first. Read the very first lines of the Catechism…

1 God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.

God makes the first move. By his grace we respond in faith…

*142 By his Revelation, “the invisible God, from the fullness of his love, addresses men as his friends, and moves among them, in order to invite and receive them into his own company.” The adequate response to this invitation is faith.

143 By faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God. With his whole being man gives his assent to God the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the author of revelation, “the obedience of faith”.*

I hope the references to the catechism help. Everyone wants to define grace, quantify it and explain it. It is a mystery which really can’t be explained. We can only try to describe it in ways which humans can grasp.

-Tim-