What is Grace and how does it work?

[Francis]

This friend is concerned that we Catholics earn grace and I was wondering what does it mean to earn grace? Als

we have lost grace,when Adam and Eve sinned ,though we receive grace freely we must toil for it by keeping holiness and resist sin,the flesh ,the world and the devil. sanctifying grace is given and restored through the sacraments ,and its given through the church.

Matthew 5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.John 10:32 Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?”

Acts 9:36 Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas.] She was devoted to good works and acts of charity.
Ephesians 2:10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Titus 3:8 The saying is sure.

I desire that you insist on these things, so that those who have come to believe in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works; these things are excellent and profitable to everyone.

Revelation 20:12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Depending on the school of thought, they’d say that it proves that you were never saved to begin with,

Pretty sure my late Presbyterian husband and his late Presbyterian parents would have said that.

For them, living a good life as a responsible, upstanding, moral citizen showed you’d been saved. As long as you kept doing that, you didn’t have to worry. You also didn’t have to pray, read the Bible, go to church, or do much of anything except keep being a good person and pay your taxes.

 

[lagerald24]

Yeah, it’s funny. When the Bible talks about judgement day, everyone is judged according to their works, not by their faith. Tough one for the protestants to explain.

 

[lagerald24]

One of the best verses which I think disproves the Calvinist view of ‘once saved, always saved’ is Hebrews 10:29.

“How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?” (My emphasis). Clearly, God’s plan for someone’s life can be thwarted through grave sin, which cuts us off from the Vine from which we receive our life.

Some protestants have tried to explain this verse in different ways but they don’t really do it justice. Also, how do Calvinists and other protestants explain the multiple passages of Scripture that warn us not to do bad works or sin? Obviously, something more is going on in those verses than just sanctification and how you appear before other men. Mortal sin, like we read about in 1st John, truly does separate us from the grace of God.

 

[HopkinsReb]

Sola fide protestants would say that works are part of or naturally flow from faith, so it’s a distinction without a difference.

 

[lagerald24]

Yeah, I’ve seen that.

 

[lagerald24]

My friend is disturbed by the idea that we can go in and out of grace. That verse in Hebrews though seems to explain away that new-found idea Calvin came up with. Even Luther believed that one could lose their salvation through apostasy.

 

[jericho777]

What is grace? It is God’s unmerited favor towards us. Something we don’t deserve. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus. That’s the only way. It is that grace that changes us from the inside out.

 

[TheLittleLady]

The Catechism sums it up:
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2003.htm

2003 Grace is first and foremost the gift of the Spirit who justifies and sanctifies us. But grace also includes the gifts that the Spirit grants us to associate us with his work, to enable us to collaborate in the salvation of others and in the growth of the Body of Christ, the Church. There are sacramental graces , gifts proper to the different sacraments. There are furthermore special graces , also called charisms after the Greek term used by St. Paul and meaning “favor,” “gratuitous gift,” “benefit.” Whatever their character - sometimes it is extraordinary, such as the gift of miracles or of tongues - charisms are oriented toward sanctifying grace and are intended for the common good of the Church. They are at the service of charity which builds up the Church.

 

[Latin]

My friend is disturbed by the idea that we can go in and out of grace. That verse in Hebrews though seems to explain away that new-found idea Calvin came up with. Even Luther believed that one could lose their salvation through apostasy.

Your friend lagerald24 probably knows Catholic Soteriology. – Just joking, but maybe he knows.
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The Catholic Church affirms predestination as a DE FIDE Dogma (the highest level of binding theological certainty).

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Predestination of the elect.

Consequently, the whole future membership of heaven, down to its minutest details, with all the different measures of grace and the various degrees of happiness, has been irrevocably fixed from all eternity.

Nor could it be otherwise. For if it were possible that a predestined individual should after all be cast into hell or that one not predestined should in the end reach heaven, then God would have been mistaken in his foreknowledge of future events; He would NO LONGER be omniscient.
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THE THEORY OF PREDESTINATION prævisa merita

THIS THEORY, CHAMPIONED BY all Thomists and a few Molinists (as Bellarmine, Francisco Suárez, Francis de Lugo):

Asserts that God, by an absolute decree and without regard to any future supernatural merits, predestined from all eternity certain men to the glory of heaven, and then, in consequence of this decree, decided to give them all the graces necessary for its accomplishment. End quote.

Predestination | Catholic Answers Encyclopedia

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As you see above lagerald24, even the outcome of our judgment is predestined from all eternity.
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According to the Infallible Teachings of the Trent and this is also a Formal Teachings of the Catholic Church; at their baptism every elect receives God’s special UNDESERVED grace The Gift of Final Perseverance, without this special grace every elect would end up in hell.
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God’s special UNDESERVED grace The Gift of Final Perseverance Infallible Protects the elect not to die in the state of mortal sin.

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As you said Iagerald24 you are an amateur high-school apologist, I suggest to study:

THE MYSTERY OF PREDESTINATION John Salza

GRACE, PREDESTINATION, AND THE SALVIFIC WILL OF GOD William G. Most

Both of them among the most celebrated Catholic theologians.
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Furthermore I suggest to study:

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Divine Providence

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12510a.htm
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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Predestination of the Elect

Predestination | Catholic Answers Encyclopedia

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Summa Theologiae/First Part/Question 116

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Summa_Theologiae/First_Part/Question_116
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A TIPTOE THROUGH TULIP James Akin

http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/TULIP.htm
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RIGHTEOUSNESS AND MERIT by James Akin

http://jimmyakin.com/righteousness-and-merit
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RESISTING AND COOPERATING WITH GOD by James Akin

http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/COOPERAT.htm
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Jimmy Akin is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine , and a weekly guest on “Catholic Answers Live.”
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God bless

 

[Latin]

They really hate it when I describe salvation in its past, present, and future aspects. They think of it as a solely one time thing and that’s it. The rest is sanctification, which at the end of the day, doesn’t really matter.

Righteousness and Merit by James Akin​

Furthermore, Catholics don’t need to have any problem with saying that our righteousness is brought about by a decree of God.
The Catholic can be perfectly happy saying that when we are justified God declares us righteous and his declaration bring about what it says. He declares us righteous, and so our guilt is taken away and our righteousness is restored.

Protestants who say this at least have a leg up on those who think Catholics believe we must do good works in order to become justified — a position which was explicitly condemned at Trent, which taught “nothing that precedes justification, whether faith or works, merits the grace of justification” ( Decree on Justification 8).

Catholic theology teaches we do not do good works in order to be justified, but that we are justified in order to do good works, as Paul says: “[W]e are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them”(Ephesians 2:10).

Justification is the cause, not the consequence, of good works.

You don’t have to do a diddly-do-da thing after being justified by God in baptism in order to go to heaven.

There is no magic level of works one needs to achieve in order to go to heaven.

One is saved the moment one is initially justified. End quote

http://jimmyakin.com/righteousness-and-merit
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Might add, every elect irrevocably saved at their baptism, Infallible Protected by God’s special grace The Gift of Final Perseverance.

In the above article Jimmy explains in fine details of the Catholics and Protestants misunderstanding on Justification, Sanctification, Righteousness and Merit.

When you will really understand Jimmy’s teachings on RIGHTEOUSNESS AND MERIT and RESISTING AND COOPERATING WITH GOD you will professionally able to explain your Protestant friends the Fullness of the Truth.
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Of course we should do as much supernatural works as we possible can out of love for the Glory of God and out of love for others.

God determines our glory and positions in heaven according to the outcome of the judgment of our supernatural works. - Our judgment described in 1 Cor.3:12-15.
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God bless

 

[Tis_Bearself]

For a good short reference, in case you don’t have time or inclination to read 10 books, this is a pretty good summary of the Catholic concept of “predestination.”

I note that most Catholics do not run around using the word “predestination” because people associate that term heavily with Calvinist Protestants. The Catholic conception of it is significantly different, and also there are (as the article points out) differing Catholic schools of thought on it.

St. Mary's Catholic Center

 

[Latin]

In my opinion, the Catholic Encyclopedia Predestination of the elect and the Catechism is the greatest explanation on our predestination.

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CCCS 1990-1991; Justification is God’s free gift which detaches man from enslavement to sin and reconciles him to God.

Justification is also our acceptance of God’s righteousness. In this gift, faith, hope, charity, and OBEDIENCE TO GOD’S WILL are given to us.
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CCCS 1996-1998; Justification comes from grace (God’s free and undeserved help) and is given to us to respond to his call.

This call to eternal life is supernatural, coming TOTALLY from God’s decision and surpassing ALL power of human intellect and will. End quote.

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Phil.2:13; “For it is God who works in you BOTH to WILL and to ACT for His good pleasure.”

2022 The divine initiative in the work of grace PRECEDES, PREPARES, and ELICITS the free response of man.

(Thomas Aquinas, S. Th.II/II 4, 4 ad 3). God effects everything, the willing and the achievement. …

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Catholic Encyclopedia Divine Providence says;
Life everlasting promised to us, but unaided we can do nothing to gain it.
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The way described above is the way, God’s gifts of efficacious graces aides us to say yes to God’s call us to heaven.
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God bless

 

[MT1926]

Also, this friend believes that the Sacraments don’t convey or give us grace but rather are manifestations of grace

She said that repentance is really for her own sake, which confused me.

Both of these statements seem to come from the mind of the prescriptive/descriptive style of interpreting scripture that James White talks about.

I’ve never heard him give reasoning for why he interprets scripture this way, he just sticks to his guns that he is right, when interpreting Jesus’ words descriptively, and the Catholic Church is wrong when interpreting Jesus prescriptively.

Just to use your above two examples.

John 3:5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

The Catholic Church would read Jesus prescriptively here. When we read the words “unless one is” we take that at face value and come to the conclusion that Jesus instilled the normal mode of receiving His grace by being Baptized. Basically, you get wet Jesus gives you grace. Seems like a pretty straight forward interpretation of the words “unless one is”.

Well the “manifestation” would be no Jesus doesn’t mean what He says here because He speaking descriptively not prescriptively. So what Jesus means here is the saved Christians doesn’t need to be Baptized in order to receive grace but that they will want to be Baptized as a sign to others that they already received grace. Not sure how you get that from the words “unless one is” but it is what it is.

As for the repentance being for her sake I think that comes from the same descriptive mindset. I don’t prescriptively repent to be forgiven I descriptively repent because that is what saved people do.

Basically, she is taking a verse like

Matthew 6:14 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

And instead of plainly reading the prescriptive requirement to forgive others she is reading this descriptively to mean you will forgive others because as a Christian you have been forgiven.

Not sure how one comes up with this descriptive words of Christ but that is how it has been explained to me.

God Bless

 

[TheLittleLady]

My friend is disturbed by the idea that we can go in and out of grace.

My friend, during their conversion to Catholicism, had an anaolgy that I have used in teaching.

Imagine you are standing in a stately old fashioned theatre, like an opera house, and it is all dark. The stage is undressed so it is all very dark. There is one bright white spotlight shining on one spot in that stage. That is God’s grace. You are free to step into that light, to step out of that light.

 

[Latin]

lagerald24:

My friend is disturbed by the idea that we can go in and out of grace.

My friend, during their conversion to Catholicism, had an anaolgy that I have used in teaching.

Imagine you are standing in a stately old fashioned theatre, like an opera house, and it is all dark. The stage is undressed so it is all very dark. There is one bright white spotlight shining on one spot in that stage. That is God’s grace. You are free to step into that light, to step out of that light.

According to Catholic teachings, God’s efficacious graces aides us to step into the light and we freely decide to step into the light.

Also according to Catholic teachings, God’s efficacious graces aides us to stay in the light and we freely decide to stay in the light and at the end God takes us up to heaven.
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Phil.2:13; “For it is God who works in you BOTH to WILL and to ACT for His good pleasure.”

God effects everything, the willing and the achievement.

Life everlasting promised to us, but unaided we can do nothing to gain it.
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God bless

 

[Latin]

I’ve been wanting to start a thread on grace for a while.

The Mystery of Predestination by John Salza.

Man always freely rejects sufficient grace, if the grace is efficacious, then man freely cooperates with it.
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A sufficient grace has an operating effect only (empowering the will to act),

whereas an efficacious grace has both an operating and cooperating effect (applying the will to act).

When God wills a person to perform a salutary act (e.g., prayer, good works), He grants him the means (an efficacious grace) that infallibly produces the end (the act willed by God).

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If God wills to permit a person to resist His grace, He grants him a sufficient, and not an efficacious, grace.

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An important question; Why would God wills that we resist his grace?

Because sometimes He wills to permit us to do acts of sins for the reason to convert our sins into good, this is a part of the process the way God makes us saints.
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When God wills not to permit us an act of sin, He provides us an efficacious grace and we always infallible resist the temptation of sin.
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As we see above, with the provisions of sufficient and efficacious graces God absolutely Governs/ controls the entire human race.

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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Divine Providence says;
His wisdom He so orders all events within the universe that the end for which it was created may be realized.

He directs all, even evil and sin itself, to the final end for which the universe was created.

Nor would God permit evil at all, unless He could draw good out of evil (St. Augustine, xi in P.L, LX, 236;

Evil, therefore, ministers to God’s design (St. Gregory the Great, op. cit., VI, xxxii in; P.L.

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For Augustine says (De Civ. Dei v, 1) that the Divine will or power is called fate.

But the Divine will or power is not in creatures, but in God.
Therefore fate is not in creatures but in God.

The Divine will is cause of all things that happens, as Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 1 seqq.). Therefore all things are subject to fate.

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Hence if this divine influence stopped, every operation would stop.
Every operation, therefore, of anything is traced back to Him as its cause. (Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III.)

God alone can move the will, as an agent, without doing violence to it. Hence we receive from God not only the power of willing but its employment also. (Bk III, Chaps 88-89)
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Aquinas said, “God changes the will without forcing it.
But he can change the will from the fact that He himself operates in the will as He does in nature,” De Veritatis 22:9.

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Catholic Encyclopedia Divine Providence says;
God preserves the universe in being; He acts in and with every creature in each and all its activities.

As we see above, God is not only act in and with us but He acts in and with every creature in each and all its activities.
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God bless

 

[guanophore]

,though we receive grace freely we must toil for it by keeping holiness and resist sin,the flesh ,the world and the devil. sanctifying grace is given and restored through the sacraments ,and its given through the church.

I think this way of expressing it throws a roadblock for all those of our separated brethren who have been contaminated with Calvanism. From a Calvanistic point of view, it is either/or. One either toils for grace (Pelagianism) or it is free.

I think it is easier to talk to them about this if we use the expression “working out” salvation. This acknowledges that the grace of salvation has already been placed within us. For Catholics, that would mean baptism, for Calvanism, the “regeneration” that is separated from the bath of renewal.

This friend is concerned that we Catholics earn grace and I was wondering what does it mean to earn grace?

They erroneously believe that we think we have to qualify for it somehow, through our own human efforts. they have been taught that Catholicism is a form of Pelagianism.

This misunderstanding is, unfortunately, exacerbated by the concepts of “meriting grace”.

 

[guanophore]

“The work that Jesus did was done once and for all and nothing that we do affects that. We are reconciled to God, and it is solely a work of God and not of our own.

There are some aspects of this that are Catholic. Jesus carried our sins in His body on the cross, and accomplished redemption. Where it goes off track, though, is the assumption that the finished work of Christ is then somehow automatically applied to everyone, or to those whom God has predestined for salvation.

A person can have the price of their freedom from slavery paid, yet still choose to remain in slavery. Each soul must have the benefit of that redemption personally applied to themselves. The Apostles taught this occurs through repentance and baptism.

Calvanists believe that there is no need to repent from sin. They believe the repentance we are called to make is from unbelief to belief.

Repeated action for the forgiveness of sins achieves nothing,

While I do think that some Catholics have an underappreciation of forgiveness that has already occurred, the Apostles taught that human beings must enter into and receive forgiveness. These actions that are ordered toward receiving what Jesus already purchased for us on the cross are seen by Calvanists as us (Catholics) “working” to be saved. This would include participation in sacraments.

The Apostles taught that there are certain actions a person takes to enter into the grace. I think of choosing to stand under the waterfall from which the grace pours. The grace is there, poured out for all, but not everyone chooses to stand under it.

"And he (Peter) testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Acts 2:40

Peter did not mean that we could “work” our way into heaven, as is made clear when his hearers asked what they must do to be saved.

37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” 38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.”

This passage makes it clear that their sins have not yet been forgiven, nor have they received the gift of the HS.

So basically, in my friend’s position, once a person accepts Christ and asks for forgiveness of their sins, all sins are forgiven, past, present, AND FUTURE. I was kind of bugged by that, obviously. What are your thoughts?

It would be pretty silly to say the Lord’s prayer, and continually ask for forgiveness of our sins if there were no point. Jesus did not teach things that have no point.

 

[thebible]

Grace is getting something we don’t deserve.