Trying to understand grace, justification, and sanctification better

[pinky1414]

Brothers and Sisters, help me to unravel this statement from a Catholic.com article…

“Venial sins don’t destroy supernatural life, and they don’t even lessen it.”

I’m trying to understand how this fits into the Catholic theology of grace, justification, and sanctification. From my understanding our justification and sanctification can increase and decrease… yet our ‘supernatural life’ does not?

Here is the quote in a larger context from the article Grace: what it is and what it does

*You can obtain supernatural life by yielding to actual graces you receive. God keeps giving you these divine pushes, and all you have to do is go along.

For instance, he moves you to repentance, and if you take the hint you can find yourself in the
confessional, where the guilt for your sins is remitted (John 20:21–23). Through the sacrament of penance, through your reconciliation to God, you receive sanctifying grace. But you can lose it again by sinning mortally (1 John 5:16–17).

Keep that word in mind: mortal. It means death. Mortal sins are deadly sins because they kill off this supernatural life, this sanctifying grace. Mortal sins can’t coexist with the supernatural life, because by their nature such sins are saying “No” to God, while sanctifying grace would be saying “Yes.”

Venial sins don’t destroy supernatural life, and they don’t even lessen it. Mortal sins destroy it outright. The trouble with venial sins is that they weaken us, making us more vulnerable to mortal sins.

When you lose supernatural life, there’s nothing you can do on your own to regain it. You’re reduced to the merely natural life again, and no natural act can merit a supernatural reward. You can merit a supernatural reward only by being made able to act above your nature, which you can do only if you have help—grace.

To regain supernatural life, you have to receive actual graces from God. Think of these as helping graces. Such graces differ from sanctifying grace in that they aren’t a quality of the soul and don’t abide in it. Rather, actual graces enable the soul to perform some supernatural act, such as an act of faith or repentance. If the soul responds to actual grace and makes the appropriate supernatural act, it again receives supernatural life. *

thank you!

 

[zach_dunn]

Brothers and Sisters, help me to unravel this statement from a Catholic.com article…

“Venial sins don’t destroy supernatural life, and they don’t even lessen it.”

I’m trying to understand how this fits into the Catholic theology of grace, justification, and sanctification. From my understanding our justification and sanctification can increase and decrease… yet our ‘supernatural life’ does not?

Here is the quote in a larger context from the article Grace: what it is and what it does

*You can obtain supernatural life by yielding to actual graces you receive. God keeps giving you these divine pushes, and all you have to do is go along.

For instance, he moves you to repentance, and if you take the hint you can find yourself in the
confessional, where the guilt for your sins is remitted (John 20:21–23). Through the sacrament of penance, through your reconciliation to God, you receive sanctifying grace. But you can lose it again by sinning mortally (1 John 5:16–17).

Keep that word in mind: mortal. It means death. Mortal sins are deadly sins because they kill off this supernatural life, this sanctifying grace. Mortal sins can’t coexist with the supernatural life, because by their nature such sins are saying “No” to God, while sanctifying grace would be saying “Yes.”

Venial sins don’t destroy supernatural life, and they don’t even lessen it*. Mortal sins destroy it outright. The trouble with venial sins is that they weaken us, making us more vulnerable to mortal sins.

When you lose supernatural life, there’s nothing you can do on your own to regain it. You’re reduced to the merely natural life again, and no natural act can merit a supernatural reward. You can merit a supernatural reward only by being made able to act above your nature, which you can do only if you have help—grace.

To regain supernatural life, you have to receive actual graces from God. Think of these as helping graces. Such graces differ from sanctifying grace in that they aren’t a quality of the soul and don’t abide in it. Rather, actual graces enable the soul to perform some supernatural act, such as an act of faith or repentance. If the soul responds to actual grace and makes the appropriate supernatural act, it again receives supernatural life.

thank you!

If you go down farther in the tract you read:

Once you have supernatural life, once sanctifying grace is in your soul, you can increase it by every supernaturally good action you do: receiving Communion, saying prayers, performing the corporal works of mercy.

It’s under the heading, Acting on Actual Graces.

 

[pinky1414]

thank you Zach.

Now help me sort this out… Our ‘supernatural life’ is just a yes or no. If it’s a ‘yes’ then we have sanctifying grace and if it’s a ‘no’ then we do not have sancifying grace. And sanctifying grace can increase and decrease (this would be our level of holiness) depending on how we respond to actual graces. It’s kind of like Mike Tyson’s punchout or other video game where our strength levels can go up or down and we can eventually ‘die’.

And so the question would be… can adults come in with different ‘strength levels’ of sanctifying grace? Take for example, baptisms of one who is becoming Catholic who is just going through the motions versus one who has had a serious conversion and is very zealous.

And what about this scenario… someone’s desire is not sincere (which only God can know, but say it’s the case here) then they would not receive the supernatural life and sanctifying grace (I’m assuming this is correct). Now, if they later come to faith in Christ later would the supernatural life and sanctifying grace then be ‘released’ and put into effect?

prayers,
Jerry

 

[zach_dunn]

thank you Zach.

Now help me sort this out… Our ‘supernatural life’ is just a yes or no. If it’s a ‘yes’ then we have sanctifying grace and if it’s a ‘no’ then we do not have sancifying grace. And sanctifying grace can increase and decrease (this would be our level of holiness) depending on how we respond to actual graces. It’s kind of like Mike Tyson’s punchout or other video game where our strength levels can go up or down and we can eventually ‘die’.

And so the question would be… can adults come in with different ‘strength levels’ of sanctifying grace? Take for example, baptisms of one who is becoming Catholic who is just going through the motions versus one who has had a serious conversion and is very zealous.

It depends on how you react to actual graces. If someone is “just going through the motions” they’re more likely to NOT respond to actual graces thus denying them more sanctifying grace. If a person is “zealous” I would say they are more likely to respond to actual graces giving them more sanctifying grace. You don’t start out with different ‘strength levels,’ baptism completely clears our soul of sin and fills us with sanctifying grace, we all start with the same ‘amount.’

And what about this scenario… someone’s desire is not sincere (which only God can know, but say it’s the case here) then they would not receive the supernatural life and sanctifying grace (I’m assuming this is correct). Now, if they later come to faith in Christ later would the supernatural life and sanctifying grace then be ‘released’ and put into effect?

prayers,
Jerry

I personally doubt that they would be getting baptized if they didn’t have sincere desire. If they for some reason did, I think they’d still get the grace. I believe that at baptism there needs to be two witnesses. Here we look at Luke.

Luke 5:19-20
“19 But finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. 20 And when he saw their faith he said, ‘Man, your sins are forgiven you.’”

The implication here is that Jesus forgave the man of his sins because of the faith of the people trying to help him. This is also why infant baptism is ok. Many Protestants say that babies cannot be baptized because they don’t have the capacity to believe and have faith. Jesus will forgive sins based on the faith of others too.

So if this person somehow did not have sincere desire, I doubt that his witnesses wouldn’t

Hope this helps.

 

[Nita]

Brothers and Sisters, help me to unravel this statement from a Catholic.com article…

“Venial sins don’t destroy supernatural life, and they don’t even lessen it.”

!

CCC#1855 says “Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it.”

The glossary in the back of the Catechism defines Venial Sin as “Sin which does not destroy the divine life in the soul, as does mortal sin, though it diminishes and wounds it (1855).” In this definition, it interprets the “charity” of 1855 as “the divine life in the soul” - (also called sanctifying grace). And it interprets “offends” as equivalent to "diminishes".

Do you have a link to the Catholic.com article?

 

[zach_dunn]

Do you have a link to the Catholic.com article?

catholic.com/library/Grace_What_It_Is.asp

Nita, I think that venial sins wound sanctifying grace insomuch as it makes us more likely to commit a mortal sin. Which edition of the Catechism do you use? mine doesn’t have a glossary in the back.

 

[Nita]

Did a little more searching. I found the statement “Venial sin neither destroys nor lessens the state of grace” included in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma’s commentary about loss of justifying grace from mortal sin. Dr. Ott referenced Denzinger 804 for his statement about venial sin. But 804 says nothing about lessening or not lessening. What it says is: “For although in this mortal life men however holy and just fall at times into at least light and daily sins, which are also called venial {can. 23}, they do not for that reason cease to be just.”

 

[pinky1414]

Zach, let’s just suppose that really someone did have an insincere desire (for example: their wife was really nagging them and so the husband just decides to convert to shut her up. lol)
Everything else you said was clear.

Now what about my first question (forgot to put a question mark)

Now help me sort this out… Our ‘supernatural life’ is just a yes or no. If it’s a ‘yes’ then we have sanctifying grace and if it’s a ‘no’ then we do not have sancifying grace. And sanctifying grace can increase and decrease (this would be our level of holiness) depending on how we respond to actual graces. It’s kind of like Mike Tyson’s punchout or other video game where our strength levels can go up or down and we can eventually ‘die’.

?

Thanks,
Jerry

 

[pinky1414]

Did a little more searching. I found the statement “Venial sin neither destroys nor lessens the state of grace” included in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma’s commentary about loss of justifying grace from mortal sin. Dr. Ott referenced Denzinger 804 for his statement about venial sin. But 804 says nothing about lessening or not lessening. What it says is: “For although in this mortal life men however holy and just fall at times into at least light and daily sins, which are also called venial {can. 23}, they do not for that reason cease to be just.”

thank you Nita. That makes sense. We are either in a state of grace or we are not. But we can increase or decrease in sanctifying grace.
blessings, jerry

 

[zach_dunn]

Zach, let’s just suppose that really someone did have an insincere desire (for example: their wife was really nagging them and so the husband just decides to convert to shut her up. lol)
Everything else you said was clear.

Now what about my first question (forgot to put a question mark) ?

Thanks,
Jerry

I thought I answered that in post number 4, could you rephrase the question in any way? This is what I said before:
zach dunn:

It depends on how you react to actual graces. If someone is “just going through the motions” they’re more likely to NOT respond to actual graces thus denying them more sanctifying grace. If a person is “zealous” I would say they are more likely to respond to actual graces giving them more sanctifying grace. You don’t start out with different ‘strength levels,’ baptism completely clears our soul of sin and fills us with sanctifying grace, we all start with the same ‘amount.’

 

[Nita]

catholic.com/library/Grace_What_It_Is.asp

Nita, I think that venial sins wound sanctifying grace insomuch as it makes us more likely to commit a mortal sin. Which edition of the Catechism do you use? mine doesn’t have a glossary in the back.

It’s the 2nd edition. I have it in hardback (dark green in color).

The “Prefatory note to the Glossary” states:
…This Glossary has been prepared by Archbishop William J. Levada, who served as a member of the Editorial Committee of the Special Commission of the holy See for the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It has been reviewed by the NCCB ad hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism, as well as by the chairman and staff of the NCCB Committee on Doctrine

This Glossary has been composed with reference to the language of the Catechism itself: the numbers in parentheses refer to the number(s) in the Catechism where the term or concept is explained. The criterion for the selection of words included in this Glossary is twofold: (1) unfamiliar or technical terms are defined, in order… (2)multiple meanings or uses of familiar terms are presented, thus alerting readers to the various uses of the term in Church doctrine…

…While the Glossary is faithful to the language of the Catechism, it does not participate in the approval of the text of the Catechism given in the Apostolic Constitution Fidei depositum of Pope John Paul II.

 

[zach_dunn]

It’s the 2nd edition. I have it in hardback (dark green in color).

The “Prefatory note to the Glossary” states:
…This Glossary has been prepared by Archbishop William J. Levada, who served as a member of the Editorial Committee of the Special Commission of the holy See for the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It has been reviewed by the NCCB ad hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism, as well as by the chairman and staff of the NCCB Committee on Doctrine

This Glossary has been composed with reference to the language of the Catechism itself: the numbers in parentheses refer to the number(s) in the Catechism where the term or concept is explained. The criterion for the selection of words included in this Glossary is twofold: (1) unfamiliar or technical terms are defined, in order… (2)multiple meanings or uses of familiar terms are presented, thus alerting readers to the various uses of the term in Church doctrine…

…While the Glossary is faithful to the language of the Catechism, it does not participate in the approval of the text of the Catechism given in the Apostolic Constitution Fidei depositum of Pope John Paul II.

Does that mean that it does not receive the imprimi protest and the like?

 

[Nita]

Does that mean that it does not receive the imprimi protest and the like?

What it means is that the Glossary was/is not included in the material officially approved by the Pope when he accepted this second English translation of the approved French edition as part of the “deposit of faith” (Fidei Depositum). The Glossary is an added help, but not considered part of the deposit of faith of the universal Church. May well be only included in English Catechisms (Second Edition) – and maybe not even in all of those. I know my First Edition (which, by the way, never received papal approval) did not have the glossary.

I think the Glossary is included in the “imprimi potest” - but am not sure. That usually is given on the authority of a bishop – and the writer of the glossary was a bishop. In my Catechism, the “Imprimi Potest” appears at top of the page, and under that there is a listing of all sorts of things that are included in the book. The Glossary is among the things in this list.