142. Grace and free will
142. GRACE AND FREE WILL
Are we saved by our own free choice or by God’s grace? Is grace just “help” to our free will, or is it “sovereign”? If it is sovereign, how can we be free? If God has all the power, how can we have any?
The justification of the ungodly is brought about by God moving man to justice (i.e., the state of grace). . . . Now God moves everything in its own manner. . . . Hence He moves man to justice according to the conditions of his human nature. But it is man’s proper nature to have free will. Hence in him who has the use of reason, God’s motion to justice does not take place without a movement of the free will; but He so infuses the gift of justifying grace that at the same time He moves the free will to accept the gift of grace. . . (I-II,113,3)
Like all gifts, grace is freely given and freely received. Otherwise it is not a gift. A blow on the head may be freely given but it is not freely received. An accidental hug in a crowded bus may not be freely given but it may be freely received.
Grace turns nature on, not off. Grace perfects nature rather than destroying it or setting it aside. Therefore when God’s grace works on man, his human nature is perfected.
But essential to human nature is free will.
Therefore when grace works on man, it works in and with and through free will.
So don’t ask the question: Is it grace or free will? That’s like asking: Is it Daddy or Mommy who made Baby? Or, better, like asking: Was it Shakespeare or Hamlet who caused Claudius to die?
If A causes B to do some good to C, some good that would not otherwise be done, then both A and B did it.
Grace is unlike other gifts in that the very fact that it is freely received is itself one of the gifts that is given. (Reread St. Thomas’ last sentence.) Even complaining about the lack of grace can be a grace, for it can move us to more passionate seeking. “Vertical kvetching” can be a grace, as in the Psalms, which are full of complaints to God. “Seek and you will find”, for it is God Who motivated the seeking. In the words of the old hymn, “I sought the Lord and afterwards I knew / He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me.”
This question of reconciling grace and free will is one of the classic questions of religious philosophy, and the simpler and shorter answer (St. Thomas’ answer) is better than any of the long, complex, distracting, technical ones that fill the books and articles. Sometimes less is more.
Don’t ask how the power is divided between God and yourself. It’s not divided. Power is divided only between rivals in the same system. God is not a part of the system of creation but the transcendent Creator. The question is appropriate only regarding gods like Zeus who are immanent parts of the same system as ourselves. Zeus and we are rivals; God and we are not. Hamlet and Claudius are rivals; Shakespeare and Hamlet are not.