Monday, June 29, 2009

St. Thomas on Justification - Grace comes first in justification

We have seen that there are four things required for justification:
  1. the infusion of grace;
  2. the movement of the free-will towards God by faith;
  3. the movement of the free-will towards sin;
  4. the remission of sins.

I've numbered them here, but is this the correct logical order? St. Thomas says that it is:

The aforesaid four things required for the justification of the ungodly are simultaneous in time, since the justification of the ungodly is not successive, as stated above (Article 7 [Discussed here - RdP]); but in the order of nature, one is prior to another; and in their natural order the first is the infusion of grace; the second, the free-will's movement towards God; the third, the free-will's movement towards sin; the fourth, the remission of sin.

The reason for this is that in every movement the motion of the mover is naturally first; the disposition of the matter, or the movement of the moved, is second; the end or term of the movement in which the motion of the mover rests, is last. Now the motion of God the Mover is the infusion of grace, as stated above (Article 6 [Discussed here - RdP); the movement or disposition of the moved is the free-will's double movement; and the term or end of the movement is the remission of sin, as stated above (Article 6). Hence in their natural order the first in the justification of the ungodly is the infusion of grace; the second is the free-will's movement towards God; the third is the free-will's movement towards sin, for he who is being justified detests sin because it is against God, and thus the free-will's movement towards God naturally precedes the free-will's movement towards sin, since it is its cause and reason; the fourth and last is the remission of sin, to which this transmutation is ordained as to an end, as stated above (1,6). [ST I-II, Q113, A8]

Hence we see that – though justification is instantaneous – it nevertheless comes entirely from grace, which logically precedes the other things in which justification consists; so once again our salvation cannot reasonably be described as "works-based."

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