Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On Grace and Free Choice · Book I: On Grace
Chapter 3: That the grace that makes pleasing is a quality inhering in the soul
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. V, De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio, Book I. The Latin source text is public domain; this English rendering is released with the site. Scripture quotations follow Bellarmine's Vulgate citations, rendered in Douay-Rheims wording where he quotes exactly. Click “Show the Latin” for the original (raw OCR of the scan; scanning errors remain — the scan itself is the authority).
Of the divisions set forth, some beget several questions. And first, concerning the division of grace into habitual grace and the grace of special help, there are two questions: one, whether there is any habitual grace; the other, whether that grace is a quality distinct from charity.
As regards the first: we do not institute in this place the disputation on inherent or imputed righteousness, which in the treatise on the justification of the impious we shall treat, in its place, to the best of our powers, God helping; but only whether there is given a habitual grace making pleasing him who has it. For there are not wanting those who do not admit a grace making pleasing which is a habit, or at least a quality remaining in the soul after the manner of a habit. John Calvin, in the Antidote to the Council of Trent, session 6, chapter 7: “I contend it is false that any part of righteousness is seated in a quality or habit which resides in us; but that we are just by gratuitous acceptation.” Martin Chemnitz, in the Examination of the Council of Trent, first part, page 640 of the edition of the year 1578 in small format (of which edition the citations of pages in my books are always to be understood), reprehends the Council of Trent for having placed the grace of justification in infused qualities and virtues. Tilman Heshusius, in the book On the Six Hundred Errors of the Papists (which book, as I have admonished elsewhere also, would much more truly be entitled On the Six Hundred Lies of the Lutherans, since it contains almost nothing else than the most open and grossest lies), in the sixth place, number two, reprehends the Catechism of the Council of Trent for defining the grace that makes pleasing to be a divine quality inhering in the soul. To this opinion came near Albert Pighius, otherwise a Catholic Doctor, but in some questions, as before us Ruard Tapper, a most learned man, noted, wretchedly seduced by the reading of Calvin's books. For thus Pighius speaks, in book 5 [al. 2] On Free Choice: “We shall seek the various acceptation of grace not from the Schools, but from the divine Scriptures — seeing that in the Schools they commonly imagine the grace of God to be some created quality of our soul from God, either the same as the habit of charity, or distinct from the same. All which things I judge to be fictions, and to have no authority from the Scriptures.” Thus far he.
But the common opinion of the theologians, both on book 1 of the Sentences, distinction 17, and on book 2, distinction 27, constantly teaches that a supernatural habit is infused into us by God, by which the soul is adorned and perfected, and so rendered just, and pleasing and acceptable to God. For although Peter Lombard, in book 1 of the Sentences, distinction 17, seems to say that charity is not some habit, but the Holy Spirit himself, yet in the same book, distinction 37, he teaches with St. Augustine that the Holy Spirit dwells not only in those who actually know and love him, but also in baptized little ones, who actually neither know nor love him; from which it follows that he believed the Holy Spirit to dwell in little ones through some habit. The same Peter also, in book 2 of the Sentences, distinction 27, teaches that grace is a virtue infused into us by God; and that a virtue is a good quality of the soul. Wherefore John Scotus, on book 1 of the Sentences, distinction 17, question 1, article 3 [al. 2], teaches that that opinion of the Master can rightly be expounded and defended — which nevertheless St. Thomas, 2-2, question 23, article 2, and the other theologians reprehend, as though he had denied the habit of charity. We, God willing, shall prove both: that grace in general, and charity in particular, is a habit, or created quality.
Nor indeed is this opinion, which defends the infused habits, only that of the scholastic theologians, but also of the whole Church; for there stand decrees of two general Councils on this matter. For the Council of Vienne, celebrated in Gaul under Clement V, Supreme Pontiff, as we have in the first Clementine on the Highest Trinity and the Catholic Faith, when various opinions of the theologians were current on this matter, decreed that that one is to be received which asserts that in Baptism there are infused, both into little ones and into adults, the habits of grace and of the virtues. The Council of Trent also, session 6, although it would not define whether the grace that makes pleasing is a habit properly so called, or another quality, yet seems to have defined plainly enough that it is a permanent quality after the manner of a habit, and inhering in the soul: when it says, chapter 7, that justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inner man through the voluntary reception of grace and of the gifts; and when, a little below in the same chapter, it adds that in justification itself, together with the remission of sins, there are at once infused faith, hope, and charity, and that these inhere in the soul; and when in canon 3 it distinguishes the grace of justification from the acts of faith, hope, love, and penitence; and when in canon 11 it defines that the grace of justification is not only the external favor of God, but also charity poured out in the heart and inhering in it. Finally, that this was the mind of the Council of Trent, besides other authors, the Catechism of the same Council witnesses, in the treatise on the Sacrament of Baptism, in these words: “Now grace, as the Synod of Trent has decreed, under pain of anathema, to be believed by all, is not only that through which the remission of sins is made, but a divine quality inhering in the soul, and as it were a certain splendor and light, which blots out all the stains of our souls, and renders the souls themselves fairer and brighter.” And lest perchance anyone strive to understand by the divine quality an action, and not a habit, a little after the same author writes that through that quality which is poured out in our hearts we are rendered fit for all the offices of Christian piety; and a little below he adjoins that from it pious and honorable actions proceed.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
per modum habitus in homine permanen¬ tem. Ex partitionibus priemissis qua;dam sunt, quae non nullas pariunt quaestiones. Ac primum de participatione gratiae in gratiam habitualem, et gratiam auxilii specialis, duae sunt qua;stiones ; una, sitne gratia aliqua habitualis; altera, utrum ea gratia sit quali¬ tas a charitate distincta. Quod ad primum attinet, non instituimus hoc loco disputationem de justitia inhaerente vel imputativa, quam in tractatu de justifi¬ catione impii, suo loco pro viribus Deo juvante, tractabimus. Sed solum, an detur (I) Apo. III, 20. - (2) Psal. LY1H, H; Psal. XXII, 6. gratia habitualis gratum faciens habentem; non enim desunt, qui non admittant gra¬ tiam gratum facientem, quae sil habitus, aut certe qualitas per modum habitus iu anima permanens. Joannes ■Calvinus in Antidoio Concilii Tridentini, sess. 0. cap. 7 : e Fal¬ sum, inquit, esse contendo, ullam justitia; partem in qualitate sitam esse vel habitu, qui nobis resideat, sed gratuita acceptione nos esse justos. » Martinus Kcmnitius iu Examine Tridentini Concilii, prima parte, pagina G40. editionis anni 1 in parva forma ( de qua editione semper intelligcndte sunt citationes paginarum in meis libris) reprehendit Concilium Tridentinum, quod iu qualitatibus- et virtutibus iniusis justifi¬ cationis gratiam constituerit. Tilmannus lleshusius in libro de sexcentis erroribus Pontificiorum, (qui liber, ut alibi etiam mo¬ nui, mullo verius inscriberetur de sexcentis mendaciis Luthcranorum , cum nihil fere contineat aliud, nisi apertissima, crassissi- maque mendacia) loco sexto, numero secun¬ do, reprehendit Cathechismum Concilii Tri¬ dentini, quod gratiam gratum facientem esse definiat qualitatem divinam in anima inha;- rentem. Ad hanc sententiam accessit Albertus Pi- ghius, Catholicus alioqui Doctor, sed in nonnullis qua;stionibus ut ante nos Ruardus Tapperus, vir doctissimus, annotavit, ex lectione librorum Calvini misere seductus. Sic enim Pighius loquitur in 5. lib. de libe¬ ro arbitrio : « Cratire acceptionem variam non ex Scholis: sed ex divinis Scripturis petemus. Quando quidem in illis fere imagi¬ nantur gratiam Dei qualitatem aliquam in- crcatam anima; nostra; a Deo, vel eamdem cum charitatis habitu, vel distinctam ab eo¬ dem. Qua; commentitia universa existimo, nec ex scripturis ullam auctoritatem habe¬ re. » Ha:c ille. At sententia communis Theologorum tum in primum Sentent. distinet. 17. tum in se¬ cundum dist. 27. constanter docet, habitum supernaturalem a Deo nobis infundi, quo anima exornetur, et perficiatur, atque adeo justa Deoque grata cl accepta redda¬ tur. Quamvis enim Petrus Lombardus in 1 . lib. Sentent. dist. 17. charitatezn non habi¬ tum aliquem, sed ipsum Spiritum sanctum esse dicere videatur, tamen in eodem libro, distinet. 37, docet cum sancto Augustino Spiritum sanctuin non solum eos inhabitare, qui cum actu cognoscunt et diligunt, sed To*. V. etiam parvulos baptizatos, qui eum actu no" que cognoscunt, neque diligunt; ex quo sequitur, ut crediderit, Spiritum sanctum per habitum aliquem iu parvulis habitare. Idem etiam Petrus in u. lib. Sentent. dis¬ tinet. 27. docet, gratiam esse virtutem nobis a Deo infusam : virtutem autem esse bonam animi qualitatem ; quare Joannes Scotus in 1. Sentent. dist. 17. quaestion. 1. artic. 3. recte exponi, ac defendi posse docet, sen¬ tentiam illam magistri. Quam tamen sanctus Thomas in 2. 2. quaesi. 23. artic. 2. et cale¬ ri Theologi Magistri sententiam reprehen¬ dunt. quasi is negaverit habitum charitatis ; nos utrumque, Deo volente, probabimus, et gratiam in genere, et eharitatem in specie esse habitum, sive qualitatem creatam. Neque vero haec sententia, quae habitus infusos defendit, solum Theologorum Scho¬ lasticorum, sed etiam Ecclesiae totius senten¬ tia est; nam exstant duorum Conciliorum ge¬ neralium de hac re decreta. Concilium enim Viennense subClemente V. Pontifice Maximo in Gailiiis celebratum, uthabemus in Clemen- lina prima de summa Trinitate, et fide Ca¬ tholica, cum de hac re varia; Theologorum circumferrentur opiniones, statuit eam esse recipiendam, quae asserit infundi in Baipli- smo tum parvulis, tum adultis habitus gratiae et virtutum. Concilium etiam Tridentinum sess. (>. quamvis definire noluerit, sit ne gratia gra¬ tum faciens, habitus proprie dictus, an qua¬ litas alia, tamen esse qualitatem permanentem per modum habitus, atque anima; inhaeren¬ tem satis aperte definivisse videtur, cum ait ca-p. 7. justificationem non esse solum re¬ missionem peccatorum,' sed etiaip sanctifi¬ cationem, et renovationem interioris hominis per voluntariam susceptionem gratiae et donorum. Et cum paulo infra in eodem ca¬ pite addit, in ipsa justificatione cum remis¬ sione peccatorum simul infundi fidem, spem et eharitatem caque anima; inhaerere. Et cum canone tertio distinguit gratiam justifi¬ cationis ah actibus fidei, spei, dilectionis et poenitentia;. Et cum canone 11. definit justi¬ ficationis gratiam non esse tantuui externum Dei favorem, sed etiam eharitatem in corde diffusam, eique inhaerentem. Denique hanc fuisse Tridentini Concilii mentem, praeter alios aucturos, testatur Ca- tcchismus ejusdem Concilii, in tractatu do Sacramento Baptismi, his verbis : « Est autem gratia, quemadmodum Tridcntiim 506 UBER I. Synodus ab omnibus credendum, poena ana. thematis proposita, decrevit, non solum per quam peccatorum fit remissio, sed divina qualitas in anima inhaerens, ac veluti splen¬ dor quidam et lux, quae animarum nostrarum maculas omnes delet, ipsasque animas pul¬ chriores et splendidiores reddit. <t Ac nequis forte conetur per divinam qualitatem intel- ligere actionem, non habitum ; paulo post idem auctor scribit, per eam qualitatem, quae in cordibus nostris diffunditur, ad om¬ nia Christianae pietatis officia nos habiles reddi. Et paulo infra adjungit, ex ea pias honestasque actiones proficisci. CAPUT IV. Probatur veritas capite superiore explicata.