Sanctifying Grace: Is It Created or Uncreated???

[Reader Antonius]

One of my friends, an Evangelical, recently declared his adherence of all 5 points of Calvinism. That led me on a search to renew my own Catholic Faith (as a former semi-Calvinist myself). I turned to Dr. Ludwig Ott and began reading his "Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma." During that time, I discovered that Dr. Ott wrote that sanctifying grace is a created grace that is really distinct from God. Of course, as Catholics (Eastern and Western) we believe that there are two kinds of grace: created and uncreated...the latter being God Himself.

That statement by Dr. Ott troubled me as it seemed to contradict what I remembered being taught about sanctifying grace. Thus, I turned to the current "sure norm" for teaching Holy Orthodoxy: the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I found the following most pertinent to my situation:

LATIN:
1999 Christi gratia donum est gratuitum, quod Deus nobis praebet, vitae Eius per Spiritum Sanctum in animam nostram infusae ad eidem medendum a peccato eamque sanctificandam: illa est gratia sanctificans seu deificans, in Baptismo recepta. Ipsa est in nobis operis sanctificationis fons...

**********************************************
ENGLISH:
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...

Normally, the CCC is enough to remove all doubt in me regarding what is the Orthodox Catholic Faith...but this statement only deepened the problem. I tried first to contextualize the statement with other books. Dr. Alan Schreck's "Essential Catechism" openly equated sanctifying grace with God's Divine Life within us. I then turned to James Likoudis, whose masterful works on Eastern Orthodoxy helped me immensely in staying in the Catholic Church. In his "Letters to a Greek Orthodox", when talking about the Essence-Energies distinction, he made clear that Catholic teaching is that sanctifying grace is a created grace that gives us an uncreated grace of the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Catholic doctrine of Theosis/Divinization is safeguarded as the real interaction with God's Essence and not His "energies" (thus refuting Palamism).

Anyway, the contextualization didn't help much. Therefore I tried to look hard at the original Latin. The problem to me, it seemed, was whether the direct object of the first sentence in paragraph 1999 is "the gratuitous gift" or "his [God's] own life." The Latin, from my very limited understanding of the language, seemed to suggest that the direct object was the word "gratuitous gift." Thus implying to me that sanctifying grace is a created grace. Still, my limited Latin didn't really console my fears.

To sum up, I find myself troubled. All the sites that I searched give conflicting reports, although the majority opinion appears to be that sanctifying grace is created. My problem is that I don't want a mere opinion; I want the Faith of Holy Mother Church...Holy Orthodoxy itself. That, in my mind, is best represented by the CCC, but since I can't understand the CCC fully, I'm now troubled.

So, can anyone help me out on this question???

 

[WarriorAngel]

I suppose we could say it was created for us because of Christ's death and resurrection - and therefore He created it for us.

Obviously He said He would send the Holy Spirit to us, and gave us sacraments to receive the graces thru initiation.

To send - we are then to receive the gift is the outcome, therefore we receive what God has granted us via His atonement and created for us.

Thats what i find simple to understand.
Maybe i err. But scriptures are pointedly telling us that Jesus had to leave for them to receive. And Jesus sent the Holy Spirit out to the world... again thru the sacraments.
So in His place - came the Lord and Giver of life.

To which we could not have this life in us prior to that... and each individual must receive the sacraments to receive the graces therefore it is created for each individual for their cooperation.

Make sense?
Maybe someone better can explain it.

 

[Davidnic]

It does get into essence and energies and theosis. Deep mysteries here. It is the deifying grace and the life of God in us. But God creates it in the form we receive it. My copy of Ott is on loan right now. Have you gone to his sources on it being a created grace and checked his primary references for wording. Usually he will cite denzinger.

It is a created grace and it is a long thing to explain how it relates to the Holy Spirit and uncreated Grace. If you want more than opinion, could you go to Ott and see what he cites in that section.

 

[Davidnic]

also I believe the Catholic Catechism for Adult answer was:

Does Sanctifying Grace make you the same as God?
No, only like God, because Sanctifying Grace is a created sharing in the life of God. You are still a human being, but one that is equipped to live in Heaven.
​

Which is why we hold it different from uncreated.

 

[Rhamiel]

great stuff
i never really understood any of this
do we have a differant view then the EO on this?

 

[Davidnic]

great stuff
i never really understood any of this
do we have a differant view then the EO on this?

Well deification, Theosis...energies and essence, all kind of mysterious and the deep theology of it can lead even theologians to subtle error.

It all depends on how it is taken, if we view created grace as something that divides us from God then we have some issues. It all comes down to how we would discuss grace in the context of relationship to the Uncreated Presence of God and that Life in us.

So is it different...yes and no. I have seen views that reconcile our views and ones that exacerbate differences.

I posted on this once in a thread.

The first thing addressed needs to be the know-ability of God by His creations. I think both ends of this would agree that God in His essence is unknowable.

As Ott puts it:

As the nature is so is the cognition. When the mode of being of the object of cognition is higher than the mode of being of the subject of cognition then the later is from it's nature incapable of immediately knowing the object of cognition in it's essence....therefore it lies beyond the intellect of every created being immediately to know the Essence of God.
​

Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma
p.22

However Ott goes on to point out in the same section that:

One may, with St. Augustine and St. Thomas, assume that the human intellect can, even on earth, be elevated supernaturally and exceptionally to the immediate vision of God.
​

As examples he gives:

Exodus 33,11; Numbers 12, 8; 2 Cor 12,2

I would personally add a few others. Paul's conversion and the Transfiguration being the two most relevant.

Now we need to move onto...what does this mean with Energy and Essence and their relation to God as He is.
The above is the framework for fitting it all together. There are still theological obstacles.

The question is essentially...if we can not immediately know God, but we know we participate in the life of God and it in us through Grace and the Sacraments. How does that happen? Is not that participation made possible by God and if so...what does it say to Energy and Essence?

Must they be inherently different from each other to facilitate the Eastern view of Essence and is that in opposition to the Western one (or lack of one in may cases)? Or can they be the same with different operations, per se?

We will set Hesychasm aside for a second and worry about that when and if we need to. But the real issue is the basis of the Energy/Essence issue.

Alright, first the roadblocks.

It is Catholic Dogma that:

The divine attributes are really identical among themselves and with the Divine Essence (De Fide)
​

This would seem to end the discussion...except Dogmas are so rarely that simple. That the attributes are identical does not mean the attributes or energies...can not function in a different manner. Think of it in the same way as the wave/particle duality of light (I will, mercifully, not extrapolate on that. But it is an interesting thing...Quantum Theology wise

).

I can say this because the other dogmas of the Church further expand how this dogma is viewed...and it does not exclude the energies having a degree of allegorical accessibility that translates into a knowledge of God that, while not a knowledge of His Essence, is a knowledge that works with the knowledge of faith in a substantial way.

Now we must...simply must define the term "immediate" since it plays a vital role in this. Immediate, for this discussion is:

Acting or being without the intervention of another object, cause, or agency.​

​

So let's use that since it, although imperfectly, best describes how immediate is used.

I must stress as we move forward that we are, at the end of the day, discussing a mystery beyond us all. And may God guide us in our explorations...and may we know that we can not know all.

So...moving on.

There are other dogmas that exist to qualify the one mentioned above. They are:

• God, our Creator and Lord, can be known with certainty, by the natural light of reason from created things. (De Fide)
• God's existence is not merely an object of rational knowledge, but also an object of supernatural faith. (De Fide)
• God's Nature is incomprehensible to men. (De Fide)
• he blessed in Heaven possess an immediate intuitive knowledge of the Divine Essence. (De Fide)
• The immediate vision of God transcends the natural power of cognition of the human soul, and is therefore supernatural.(De Fide)
• The soul, for the immediate vision of God, requires the light of glory.(De Fide)
• God's Essence is also incomprehensible to the blessed in Heaven. (DeFide)

Now, look at the first one:

The divine attributes are really identical among themselves and with the Divine Essence

...and look at the above. Some would be in seeming contradiction, but really they are not. God is knowable in a fashion and form...but His Essence is not. That would be the crux of it. When the Dogmas say God can be known...it is not in His Essence. But by Mediate and Analogical Cognition...not direct cognition. As said before:

As the nature is so is the cognition. When the mode of being of the object of cognition is higher than the mode of being of the subject of cognition then the later is from it's nature incapable of immediately knowing the object of cognition in it's essence....therefore it lies beyond the intellect of every created being immediately to know the Essence of God.​

​

So it is taught:

Our Natural knowledge of God in this world is not an immediate, intuitive cognition, but a mediate, abstractive knowledge, because it is attained through the knowledge of creatures. (sent certa)
Ott, p. 18​

Our Knowledge of God here below is not proper (cognito propria) but analogical (cognito analoga) [Sent certa].
Ott, p. 19​

By creatures we mean "of created beings". So...We do agree that a level of knowledge is possible if it is not immediate. So...can God's Energies be the mediator if they are also identical with God?

And the roadblock for us is can we reconcile that God is unknowable in His Essence, but not fully unknowable in His Energies where his Essence and Energies remain identical?

Actually yes. Because no one ever argued about that being an issue shrouded in mystery that was impassible. The argument was in the opposition to the fact that:

God is absolutely simple (De Fide)​

​

What we mean by this is that God is not a divisible thing. God is one. It relates to the mystery of the Trinity.

The reason that is an issue is that if the difference in operation between Essence and Energy was so marked as to make them two different things it could be viewed as Polytheism.

So this discussion is...ultimately, a discussion of the Trinity and the Sacraments.

Now, let's move to the work of Fr. Maloney for a moment. He argues that St. Gregory does keep simplicity intact:

The Energies are manifestations of God. Still even though they are many and diverse, they are one in God. Hence the simplicity is maintained but not at the price of isolating Him from His creations.
Maloney, p.75

Palamas, as has been said above, works out a doctrine of God's Essence and Uncreated Energies in order to preserve the basic truth of Christian revelation, that we human beings have been, in God's eternal act of Love, ordered to participate in His very being.
Maloney p.75​

Does the above sound a bit Eucharistic? It should. The Eucharist is what Christ is...body, blood, soul and divinity. But that we participate in His life through it does not mean that the Essence of God is knowable to us. But the life of God is communicated to us and in us through the Sacraments.

Now, this can work with God's Essence and Energy being identical if the operation of the energy as manifested is not the determining factor of who/what God is. And it is not. We know that...if that was so then this would be in contradiction:

Our Natural knowledge of God in this world is not an immediate, intuitive cognition, but a mediate, abstractive knowledge, because it is attained through the knowledge of creatures. (sent certa)
Ott, p. 18​

Our Knowledge of God here below is not proper (cognito propria) but analogical (cognito analoga) [Sent certa].
Ott, p. 19​

To this:

• God's Nature is incomprehensible to men. (De Fide)

So it must logically follow that the manifestations, even if identical in being to the Essence, do not determine the nature and being of the Essence or require of us a know-ability of the Essence with immediate knowledge and proper cognition . This is how the Trinity is unknowable but existing in us.

So the Divine Essence is unknowable, but He communicates Himself.

As long as St. Gregory's explanations can be expressed without contradicting the dogma of God's simplicity..then it is fine. The above mostly does that. But the issue is more complex.

And it is in that vein that Rome has no objections to Him be venerated by Eastern Rite Catholics. There is no statement on it specifically but he is on the cannon of saints for the Eastern Rite. That is approval in it's own right of his veneration.

But it does leave the matter of reconciliation of the doctrine in debate. My post here is far from perfect, but I think it addresses the issues at their basic level.

Now on the mystical side of it a conversation about the relationship between the Taboric Light and this Dogma:

The soul, for the immediate vision of God, requires the light of glory.(De Fide)​

And Ott's other observation:

One may, with St. Augustine and St. Thomas, assume that the human intellect can, even on earth, be elevated supernaturally and exceptionally to the immediate vision of God.
Ott, p.22​

Would be interesting.

Works used:
Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma
by Ludwig Ott

Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh: An Introduction to Eastern Christian Spirituality
by Fr. George Maloney

The Deification of Man
by Georgios Mantzaridis

 

[Reader Antonius]

Wow! This stuff is really deep.

 

[Davidnic]

Yeah it was mind bending in theology class

 

[Reader Antonius]

No kidding!