Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Q43 A3: Whether the invisible mission of the divine person is only according to the gift of sanctifying grace?

Yes. The Holy Ghost Himself is given and sent and He proceeds temporally only according to sanctifying grace because the rational creature by its operation of knowledge and love attains to God Himself, and according to this special mode God is said not only to exist in the rational creature but also to dwell therein as in His own temple, and no other effect can be put down as the reason why the divine person is in the rational creature in a new mode, except sanctifying grace.

God is in all things by His essence, power and presence, according to His one common mode, as the cause existing in the effects which participate in His goodness. Above and beyond this common mode, however, there is one special mode belonging to the rational nature wherein God is said to be present as the object known is in the knower, and the beloved in the lover.

We are said to possess only what we can freely use or enjoy: and to have the power of enjoying the divine person can only be according to sanctifying grace. And yet the Holy Ghost is possessed by man, and dwells within him, in the very gift itself of sanctifying grace. Hence the Holy Ghost Himself is given and sent.

By the gift of sanctifying grace the rational creature is perfected so that it can freely use not only the created gift itself, but enjoy also the divine person Himself; and so the invisible mission takes place according to the gift of sanctifying grace; and yet the divine person Himself is given.