Supernatural Gifts and Original Justice

SUPERNATURAL GIFTS AND ORIGINAL JUSTICE. - I. NOTIONS. - All Catholic theologians admit that the state of original justice, that is, the state of Adam's innocence before sin, entailed along with human nature a set of supernatural gifts and preternatural gifts (v.). The former are called supernatural because they are essentially superior to every created or possible nature, human or angelic, because they are a participation in the divine nature, that is, in the intimate life of God, and they raise us above natural conditions in order to make us attain the supernatural end, which consists in the immediate vision of God.

These supernatural gifts are sanctifying Grace (received in the essence of the soul as a divine graft, the seed of eternal life), the infused virtues (theological and moral) that flow from Grace to our faculties, and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, which make us docile to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit for the purpose of perfecting the action of the infused virtues, especially in difficult circumstances in which these alone would not suffice.

II. THE APOLOGETIC PROBLEM

The Catholic teaching on the elevation of the first man above the conditions of his nature seems, at first sight, to contradict what prehistory reveals to us about the more than rudimentary civilization of primitive man. Nevertheless, the most recent studies of the new ethnology, especially those of G. Schmidt (La révélation primitive, Paris 1914, pp. 150-60), of Msgr. Le Roy (La religion des primitifs, ibid. 1909), of Th. Mainage (Les religions de la préhistoire, ibid. 1921, chaps. 2, 3, 9) demonstrate that if the first men known were at a low level as regards material civilization, they were not so as regards spiritual civilization. These recent studies have indeed shown that the progress of material civilization oriented man ever more toward earthly things and was accompanied by moral and religious regression. Prehistory demonstrates that this regression began with the first beginnings of man's history and has not ceased to intensify.

This confirms the dogmas of the state of innocence and of original sin, which are found more or less altered in the traditions of different peoples concerning a golden age that developed at the origin of humanity. What the first indications of history manifest is that, in the midst of peoples who had become idolatrous, only the monotheism of the Hebrews and Christianity were able to check this decadence and restore to men the correct idea of a God who is creator and rewarder (cf. M. J. Lagrange, Etudes sur les religions sémitiques, Paris 1905, p. 20 ff.). As A. Michel demonstrates (Justice originelle, in DTNC, VIII, col. 2024), today's conclusions of prehistory and ethnology by no means forbid us to hold the first man capable of receiving from God a supernatural revelation of a religious nature, nor even to regard him as a primitive genius endowed with great moral rectitude. These higher gifts could coexist with a backward material civilization, prior to the technical progress of the arts, the sciences and law.

St. Thomas (cf. Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ, q. 79, a. 9) often distinguishes between the higher reason and the lower reason, which is concerned with temporal things. In the first man, the higher reason could be highly illumined by divine Revelation, while the lower reason was still that of a primitive.

III. THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH AND OF THEOLOGY

Following Scripture and Tradition, the Church, through the Council of Trent (Denz-U, 788, 789), teaches very explicitly that, "the first man having disobeyed God in the earthly paradise, he fell from the state of grace and holiness in which he had been created... and that in this way he lost for us as for himself the justice and holiness that he had received." The same Council explains further on (op. cit., 800) that this justice and holiness consist essentially in the infusion of sanctifying grace and of the gifts that accompany it. It is given to us by Jesus Christ in replacement of that which Adam lost for himself and for us through his disobedience.

This doctrine is founded upon the great truth that Jesus is the new Adam who repairs what the first had lost (Rom. 5, 9-21; II Cor. 5, 15-21; Eph. 1, 4-12; 4, 22-24; Col. 1, 12-22; 3, 9-10). Since this state of interior justice and holiness consists essentially in sanctifying grace, it follows that it was given to the first man antecedently to sin. The supernatural gifts that accompany grace and that derive from grace are, according to Scripture and Tradition, the infused virtues (theological and moral) and the gifts of the Holy Spirit; therefore sanctifying grace is also called the grace of the virtues and of the gifts (cf. Sum. Theol., 3ª, q. 62, a. 2). Their ensemble forms in the just man a spiritual organism. According to the theologians, grace, "participation of the divine nature" or "second nature," is instead in the essence of the soul as a divine engrafting, and from it derive in the faculties the theological virtues, which are specified by God, the supernatural end; the infused moral virtues, which concern the means; and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, which render us docile to the special inspirations of the Holy Spirit in order to supply, especially in difficult circumstances, for the imperfection of the virtues (cf. Sum. Theol., 1-2ª, q. 62; q. 63, a. 4; q. 65; q. 67; q. 68; q. 110; q. 111; q. 112).

The grace of the virtues and of the gifts is essentially supernatural, as a participation of the divine nature or of the intimate life of God; it is the seed of eternal life (semen gloriae) or of the beatific vision, through which we shall see God face to face, immediately, without the mediation of any creature, as he sees himself.

This essentially supernatural life of grace far surpasses, for example, the miracle of the Resurrection, which supernaturally restores the natural life (vegetative and sensitive) of the body. Therefore the first man certainly had sanctifying grace, infused faith — he certainly believed in God as the ultimate end and supreme rewarder (Hebr. 11, 6) — he had supernatural hope, infused charity and the gifts of the Holy Spirit: the gift of wisdom, of understanding, of knowledge, of counsel, of fortitude, of piety and of filial fear of God (v. DONI DELLO SPIRITO SANTO).

Theologians have discussed whether Adam had sanctifying grace at the very moment of his creation or at a later time. Contrary to Hugh of St. Victor and Peter Lombard, St. Thomas (Sum. Theol., 1ª, q. 95, a. 1), with his whole school, holds that Adam received sanctifying grace at the instant in which he was created. This doctrine has become common, because it is more conformable to Scripture as interpreted by tradition; Gen. 1, 26: "Let us make man in our image"; Eccl. 7, 28-30: "God made man upright"; Eph. 4, 24: "We must put on the new man, created according to God in true justice and holiness."

Another question, also controversial, was whether grace belonged intrinsically to the state of original justice to be transmitted with nature, or whether it was distinct from it, as a personal gift granted to Adam. In the Middle Ages, Hugh of St. Victor and Peter Lombard, who admitted that Adam had received original justice before sanctifying grace, considered them distinct things. St. Thomas at first conceded some probability to this opinion, but later, especially in the Sum. Theol. (1ª, q. 95, a. 1; q. 100, a. 1, ad 2), he held that sanctifying grace belongs intrinsically to original justice, as its root. In De malo, q. 5, a. 2, ad 1, he affirms: "originalis iustitia includit gratiam gratum facientem." According to the Aquinate, the rectitude of the will toward God, the ultimate end, comes from habitual grace and from charity from the moment of creation; grace is not only a personal gift granted to Adam, it was granted to human nature as such, to be transmitted with it, as humanity is transmitted, although the soul is created directly by God when the embryo is capable of receiving it (Sum. Theol., 1ª, q. 100, a. 1). Moreover, according to St. Thomas, original sin (privation of original justice) is cancelled by Baptism, which restores sanctifying grace but not the gift of integrity. Therefore sanctifying grace is the first and principal element "of the original justice and holiness that Adam lost for himself and for us," according to the expression of the Council of Trent. The Thomist school has generally admitted this doctrine.

Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange