Isn’t Trust and Belief gifts of virtue, proceeding from the Holy Spirit given through the merits of Jesus Christ. How do we get those virtues?
To use the quote from St. Thomas “When the cause is absent so is the effect” Jesus being the cause, love being the effect?. Jesus’ love was always present so we can’t say He was absent. It seems like a paradox. Also scripture states that no one can come to the
Father except through Jesus, and no one can go to Jesus unless the Father calls him. Any answers? Is Jesus the cause, or is the Father?
Yes.
Well, the actual sequence is Gratuitous Grace then Sanctifying Grace.
Gratuitous Grace is the Holy Spirit talking to our souls as our ears hear the Church proclaim that the Kingdom of Heaven is here, turn and believe this Official News and be Baptized into this Kingdom called the Church. Suddenly the Soul begins to think, “Can this be real?” And also, the reason says, “If it were real it would be very desirable (good) to be united to Christ in his Church”. And the Will then begins to Love the idea of it all being true and becoming united to it. And the Will consents “Call it True; even though I cannot prove it I want it, I love it”. That is the Generation of Faith (belief consented to by the will), and it is the work of Free or Gratuitous Grace. The limit of the work that this first faith can do is to say to the Preacher, “Here is water, is there anything to prevent you from Baptizing me? I want to be in this Kingdom established by Jesus.”
Then time for Sanctifying Grace, and the infusion of the virtues. The Church grants citizenship to the person by Baptizing and Confirming the person. The mystery is that the Holy Spirit is also granted and fills the person, such that the person is both initiated into the Kingdom on earth and granted new birth into brotherhood with the King, and given Grace - the Virtues are “stirred into” the soul so that we have a new, “good”, “justified” person. The Virtues (Faith, Hope, Charity, etc.) are “habits” for use by the person’s will. New supernatural habits. Now when the person hears a word from God, the habit of Faith takes over and the person knows and wants it as his Truth, rather than his old habit of wondering whether it might be true. And when he hears that word from God through the Church, he is confident (Hope) it will be true for his life, rather than simply wishing he could participate in something so good. And when he hears that word from God he is warmed with Love (Charity) for the God who sent that word to him, and he consents to his life carrying out the desires of that God.
And this often surprises the person in his conscious thought - our souls, like the Holy Spirit, are not perceivable by us except in the appearances of the conscious thoughts that we find ourselves thinking and the words we find ourselves speaking and the actions we find our hands and feet doing.
God speaking is the Father, God appearing before you in the Word from the Father is the Son, God joining himself to you as one with you is the Spirit.
This was a very brief summary of the content of Aquinas’ Summa, parts !, II-1, II-2.
John Martin
