Grace

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thinkandmull

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Here’s my question:

If grace is impersonal, how can it be the life of God?
 
Here’s the paradox for Scholastics: if God cannot be communicated in any way, that is, have an accident, than grace can in no way be His life. It is thus impersonal, and therefore inferior to creatures having reason and will like Him.
 
thinkandmull said:
Here’s the paradox for Scholastics: if God cannot be communicated in any way, that is, have an accident, than grace can in no way be His life. It is thus impersonal, and therefore inferior to creatures having reason and will like Him.
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They could say that God knows the moment you wish to try to communicate with him and grants the grace accordingly.
 
Grace is either God himself, if He is unified so that even creation needs to be constantly sustain; or it is someone else, or it is impersonal
 
thinkandmull said:
Grace is either God himself, if He is unified so that even creation needs to be constantly sustain; or it is someone else, or it is impersonal
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Where did you get this information? It is not consistent with Church teaching.
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CCC:
II. GRACE

1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.46

1997 Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an “adopted son” he can henceforth call God “Father,” in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.

1998 This vocation to eternal life is supernatural. It depends entirely on God’s gratuitous initiative, for he alone can reveal and give himself. It surpasses the power of human intellect and will, as that of every other creature.47

1999 The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification:48
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That says that grace is “His own Life”. But God cannot be divided. So why do we have the idea of “santifying grace” as if it is distinct from God?
 
thinkandmull said:
That says that grace is “His own Life”. But God cannot be divided. So why do we have the idea of “santifying grace” as if it is distinct from God?
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I don’t understand the question. What does sanctifying grace have to do with distinction from God?
 
If grace is not God Himself, than it is impersonal and worth less than us
 
I didn’t saw it was worthless. Just less than what is personal, like humans.

Grace must be God himself, but why do we even call Him santifying grace? At least we should capitalize it (Santifying Grace)
 
thinkandmull said:
Grace is either God himself, if He is unified so that even creation needs to be constantly sustain; or it is someone else, or it is impersonal
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The Catechism provides the answer:
1997 Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an “adopted son” he can henceforth call God “Father,” in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.
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You can look at sanctifying grace from two angles: from the point of view of the giver of the gift (God), and from the point of view of the receiver (the creature).

From God’s point of view, grace is absolutely identical with God Himself. As you point out, God has no accidents. We call that gratia increata (Uncreated Grace).

From our point of view, grace—what we receive from God—is (metaphysically speaking) an accident, a quality. Through this disposition, God comes to dwell in our souls. We call that gratia creata (created grace).

You said that God cannot communicate His Divine Life, but that is not true: He does so completely within the Holy Trinity (that is why there are three Persons); and he can do so partially to His creatures. That is why the Catechism calls grace a participation in the life of God.

Grace is not an emanation, because it is a freely given gift, whereas an emanation flows forth necessarily from its source.
 
Emanation can be free creation from Himself as well, although Vatican I says it can’t that doesn’t happen.

The CCC definition is that grace is the participation, therefore the action, of being united to God. I am talking about the nature of grace. If we say it dwells in our souls and is not God Himself, than it is impersonal and no greater than gold.

I think this debate has gone on between the Western and Eastern Christians…
 
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