136. Spirit and letter, internal and external
136. SPIRIT AND LETTER, INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL
Is Christianity internal or external? If both, how are these two dimensions related?
The New Law consists chiefly in the grace of the Holy Ghost, which is shown forth by faith that works through love. Now men become receivers of this grace through God’s Son made man, Whose humanity grace filled first, and thence flowed forth to us. Hence it is written . . . Of His fullness we all have received. . .
(But) it was becoming (fitting) that (1) the grace which flows from the incarnate Word should be given to us by means of certain external sensible objects, and that (2) from this inward grace . . . certain external works should ensue. Accordingly external acts may have a twofold connection with grace. (1) In the first place, as leading in some way to grace. Such are the sacramental acts which are instituted in the New Law, e.g., Baptism, the Eucharist, and the like. (2) In the second place there are those external acts which ensue from the promptings of grace.
The Kingdom of God consists chiefly in internal acts; but as a consequence, all things that are essential to (those) internal acts belong also to the kingdom of God. Thus if the Kingdom of God is internal righteousness, peace, and spiritual joy, all external acts that are incompatible with righteousness, peace, and spiritual joy are in opposition to the Kingdom of God and consequently should be forbidden in the Gospel of the Kingdom. On the other hand, those things that are indifferent as regards the aforesaid, for instance to eat of this or that food, are not part of the Kingdom of God; wherefore the Apostle says: The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink (Rom 14:17).
The New Law is called the law of perfect liberty (Jas 1:25) . . . in two respects. First, because it does not bind us to do or avoid certain things except such as are of themselves necessary or opposed to salvation and come under the prescription or prohibition of the law. Secondly, because it also makes us comply freely with these precepts and prohibitions inasmuch as we do so through the promptings of grace. . . .
According to the Philosopher what is free is cause of itself. Therefore he acts freely who acts of his own accord. Now man does of his own accord that which he does from a habit that is suitable to his nature, since a habit inclines one as a second nature. . . . Since then the grace of the Holy Ghost is like an interior habit bestowed on us and inclining us to act aright, it makes us to choose freely those things that are becoming to grace and shun what is opposed to it (I-II,108,1).
Christianity is (a) not merely spiritual, invisible, and internal; (b) nor is it primarily material and external; (c) nor is it a hybrid or “balance” of the two. Its essence is spiritual and internal: God’s grace, which is His very presence in the soul. But it is material in two ways. (1) Certain material, visible, and external things are the divinely appointed means by which this grace comes to us, viz. the visible Church and the Sacraments. For Christ saved us not by saying “This is My Mind” but “This is My Body”, on Calvary and in the Sacraments, which flow from it. (2) Material things are also the necessary consequences of this grace, for “(invisible) faith, if it has no (visible) works, is dead” (Jas 2:17); and some visible deeds (sins) are obstacles and enemies to this grace, and are forbidden for this reason.
But the ultimate reason for these physical things is always spiritual, since Christianity is not essentially something physical but something spiritual, since Christianity is essentially the very presence of God in the soul, and both God and the soul are spiritual.
And since spirit alone is free, Christianity in its essence is free. Even the material deeds that are commanded or forbidden are done or avoided freely, from within, out of our new spiritual habits or “second nature” that grace creates; out of free faith and hope and love toward God and neighbor rather than out of compulsion and fear of punishment. (See 1 Jn 4:18.) Of course, this purifying and educating of our motives is a gradual process, so that punishments are still needed here in our pilgrim state.