From our old friend Mike Liccione comes an important clarification on the Latin Catholic notion of “created grace” –
There certainly were Catholic theologians in the later Middle Ages who were “nominalists,” and it is certainly true that many of those nominalists treated the question of grace in more or less the way janotec criticizes. But not all scholastics were nominalists by any means. The via moderna of that period in Catholic theology, in my opinion, did tend to go wrong as janotec says; and that was a key precursor to Protestantism’s essentially forensic account of justification. But some Catholic theologians were Franciscans and Thomists who were anything but followers of that path. Indeed, in the hands of those more traditionally-minded theologians, the very concept of “created grace” was intended largely to explain how justification and sanctification consisted in what we’d now call an “ontological” change in the human soul, in such wise that the soul could become a “partaker of the divine nature” without becoming God-by-nature. In that respect, use of the concept of created grace had the same goal as that of St. Gregory Palamas when he expatiated on the distinction between the divine “essence,” which cannot be shared, and the divine “energies” or actions ad extra, which can and indeed must be shared if we are to have the life God destines us for—the “life eternal” otherwise known as theosis or “divinization.” As I see it, the chief difference between the older, more robust Catholic theology postulating “created” grace, and the Palamite view that the divine energies are “uncreated” and thus God, is that the Catholics used the term grace not merely for its primary referent, which is indeed the Uncreated himself insofar as he communicates his life to us, but also for the instruments he uses to communicate his life to the human person, and especially for some of the effects of that communication within the human person.
I have to admit that the scholastic distinctions of sanctifying, prevenient, actual, etc. graces tends to cloud rather than to elucidate the work and presence of the Holy Spirit in the created order. In attempting to quantify a movement or charism, one becomes overly analytic, thereby opening an arugument that leads to conflict. Think about the Roman Catholic versus various Portestant theories. I personally find the simpler Orthodox aproach to be more succint, and allows the mystery to be the Mystery.
HG:
For me, the scholastic distinctions to which you refer are very useful. I am far from the only student of theology who can say that they answer various questions in such a way as to steer me away from certain intellectual cul-de-sacs into which it is otherwise too easy to drive.
Of course, for a person who doesn’t have the difficulties such distinctions were designed to address, such distinctions won’t be useful. For a person who doesn’t have what it takes to understand them, they won’t be useful either. That’s perfectly OK. Scholasticism is not for everybody.
My only concern is to rebut the all-too-common charge that they are simply mistaken. I am reassured by your not repeating that charge. They are not mistaken in themselves. But I grant you it is a mistake for some people to get hung up on them.
Best,
Mike
I agree with you, Father Gregory, to some extent; and I think Mike was honest in his post about some of these tendencies in the Latin tradition.
I’d also like to say that, the more I have learned about Aquinas (by reading and studying him, rather than relying on hostile secondary sources), the more I’ve discovered that he’s a lot less “scholastic” (in the stereotypical sense) than I originally expected him to be. It’s hard to get more mystical than his Eucharistic hymns: “Praestet fides supplementum / sensuum defectui.”
Likewise, the more I read of many of the Fathers and medieval thinkers of the Eastern Church, the more “scholastic” they seem to be, despite the standard stereotypes. It’s hard to get much more technical, philosophical and, dare I say, scholastic than the battles of Palamas with his opponents.
Eirenikon,
I am saddened to see that you have omitted making reference to the repose of the sould of His Eminence Metropolitan Laurus, first Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia. If you need information let me know. He was truly a man of deep prayer and profound humility.
Once again, I have to point out that Father Gregory continues his habit of slighting Catholic by referring to us as Roman Catholics while calling the Orthodox simple the Orthodox. This is polemical and an offense to the very dialogue that the host of this sight has said he intended to hold here.
As we know, Eastern Catholics are not Roman Catholics. To constantly refer to Catholics as Romans or RC is offensive. As the Orthodox do not need to be referred to in any other way than as Orthodox, so it is true for Catholics.
Father Gregory has had this pointed out to him in the past, has ignored it, and now flaunts his apparent anti-Catholicism. This, in my opinion, draws into question his objectivity on topics related to Catholicism.
#4 – Dear Father Gregory: I would be happy to post something on the late Metropolitan Laurus. The lack of notice at this blog is certainly not meant as a slight. Although I’m not aware of any involvement he may have had in Orthodox-Catholic dialogue (the theme of this blog), he was nonetheless a man of peace who devoted his life to inter-Orthodox Church unity. Surely it’s necessary for us to get our own house in order before we are able to make any real progress with Rome (the Muscovite-Constantinopolitan flap in Ravenna is a prime example of the need for the Orthodox to speak with a unified voice in dialogue with Rome).
#5 – Dear Andrew: I am more sensitive to these sorts of issues than many of my Orthodox coreligionists. I try my very best to be fair and respectful towards Rome – to the point where I’m sure many Orthodox would say that I’m not “really Orthodox”. But I must confess that I do not see where Father Gregory is being overly offensive or provocative. I don’t just see the malice that you are seeing. Nevertheless, I am contemplating a post on church nomenclature … Stay tuned.
Doesn’t the concept of “created grace” open oneself to idolatry? If, you end up praise that which gave you blessing, and that blessing isn’t directly powered by the eternal energies of God, doesn’t that means in praising the blessing you praise something other than God? And, when you end up engaging in this praise, you engage in a form of worship of an entity that isn’t God. This to me appears to be idolatry. Maybe I am off here.
I must state that refering to Catholics of any “rite” as Roman Catholic for us Orthodox is most appropriate. The reason being, all those unia en catholica romana share the same theology. Yes, maybe not in practice but the fact remains that even those suri uris churches within the “Catholic” fold, must submit on many matters to Rome. In fact, Roman cannon law usurps and superseeds and takes precidence over the cannon law of a “particular church” other than the Roman one. The “particular churches” under the (Roman) Catholic umbrella de facto accept 21 eccumenical councils as opposed to 7 (sometimes argued 8), and the strange dogmas and pronouncements that came forth from these later “eccumenical” councils; created grace being one of many, i.e. petrine doctine (super biased and without the east ever having been there to argue it), the emaculate conception (which does make sense using the Augustinian understanding of sin but is foreign to eastern theology), the filioque (again, the RC’s need to clarify that it was used at a particular time for a specific purpose, to combate Arianism and has met it’s goal and so needs to return to the correct/dogmatic version to express the economy of the Trinity), etc. etc. So, I disagree that Fr. Gregory is being biased but only alluding to a rather ugly reality and sore spot for many eastern Catholics.
I do however, appreicate the discussion and this threat in particular as explaining created (which appears heretical) and uncreated grace. Uncreated grace simple refers to the latin explaination of the “attributes” (see St. Palamas) of God and although these too are eternally present with the essense of the ousia, their reception into the individual could be polemically argued as “created” as they refer to the choice of the individual to “open the door” if you will to Him who “stands at the door and knocks.” Thus is serves in affirming our free will so integral to salvation. It’s hairy but worthy of lively discussion. Please clarify if I have this incorrect.
Rdr. Jon