What a topic. Let’s see how you manage…
I will greatly limit my attempt, and avoiding as much as possible speculative concepts that are not strictly necessary, I will rely above all on the Bible, Liturgy, Apostolic Magisterium and the most common theological explanations.
The father and his child, between the two, write a letter. I’m going from this image. The father, approaching a table, sits the little boy – of course, totally illiterate – on his knees, and taking the child’s hand, which is holding the pencil, he prepares to write: “let’s write a letter to the Virgin Mary.” Attention: the letter will, in fact, be written between the two, father and son. The intended object, writing a letter, is absolutely beyond the child’s capabilities, since he does not know how to read or write. But this fact is no impediment to this work being carried out, provided, of course, that the child’s hand continually allows itself to be guided by the hand of its father. And here are three alternatives:
1.–The child allows the movement of his hand to be completely docile to the movement of his parent’s leading hand.. And an intelligible and perhaps beautiful text comes out. Although the handwriting, we must admit, will not be a perfect model of calligraphy. That letter was written by both of them, not only the father, but also the child. They are con-cause of a work, the father as the main cause, the child as the instrumental cause. The boy moves his hand move for his father.
2.– The child moves his hand of his own will and pleasure. And it turns out to be an unintelligible scribble, which is worthless. He has resisted his father’s motion. The proper place for that paper is the trash can.
3.– The child keeps his hand rigid, without allowing his father to move it. Nothing comes out. He has resisted his father’s motion. The paper remains blank.
These are the three possibilities that man has under the action of grace, and there is no more: accept it (1) or resist it (2 and 3). The last two options are sin, resistance to grace, more or less serious depending on the object of the action, and according to the degree of consciousness and voluntary consent that occurs in the person. The first option, the only good one, is certainly meritorious, because the child has trusted his father and has meekly obeyed his guidance, being able to resist it: he is not an inert pencil, incapable of resisting. He has really “written” the letter, he has produced the good work; Yes, his will has been moved by his father. And they have not been coordinated the two causes, putting the child the part yours and father your part. On the contrary, the causality of the child has been subordinate entirely with main paternal causality. Therefore, a happy synergy has been produced, which has made possible in the child a good work, for which he was completely incapable. Well, that’s how the entire Christian life always is. That is why our Master teaches us: “if you do not become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3).
Going back to the previous example – it would be ridiculous for the child to be proud of the precious letter written, as if it were a work solely or mainly his; –it would be equally ridiculous to think that if he has carried out this work, which is totally beyond his possibilities, “it was a matter of generosity». They are meaningless words… –and it would also be absurd if the child, by collaborating with his father, was concerned and full of anxieties: «and what will we say to the Virgin?… Well, so far it seems that we are doing well. But what will we write on the next page of the notebook? »…
Background of this image. The child who writes under the motion of his father is a good image, but imperfect, since it does not express that in reality the father not only moves the hand of his son, but his willpower. But it is already known that images, like parables, have “one side” that is eloquent, and others that are worthless. And on the other hand, with good will we can complete the image that I have proposed, thinking that the father speaks in the ear of the child, and for his word he communicates to him spirit well, it allows him to leave his hand docile to paternal guidance. This is an image that has many analogous antecedents, although not as good as my example. I only quote two:
Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S. J.(1675-1751) teaches that the Holy Spirit, in the fullness of time, has written the Gospels;
«but now the Holy Spirit writes the Gospels only in hearts. All the actions and moments of the saints are the Gospel of the Holy Spirit… The Holy Spirit, through the pen of his action [of grace], is writing a living Gospel, which can only be read on the day of glory, when, after leaving the press of this life, it will be published” (Abandonment to divine Providence, Fund. FREE DATE, Pamplona 2000, 75).
Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus (1873-1897), Doctor of the Church, when she describes the work of God in men, she also accentuates the absolute primacy of divine grace, resorting to the image of the artist who, using a brush, produces a wonderful painting. The brush without the artist can do nothing.
«If the canvas painted by an artist could think and speak, it would certainly not complain about being touched and retouched by the brush; nor would he envy the fate of this instrument, since he would know that not to the brush but to the artist who handles it he owes the beauty with which it is covered” (autobiographical manuscript C, 20 rº).
“In God we live, move and exist” (Acts 17:28). This great truth, very rarely preached, with the transition from theocentrism to anthropocentrism, is ignored by a large part of modern Christians. They perceive themselves as if they were the cause of their being and their own actions. They ignore that if God is the first and continuous cause of being and acting natural of the creatures,a fortiori He is the first and continuous cause that by the illumination and motion of his grace makes life possible supernatural Christian in each of his works. The sacred Liturgy, the main catechesis of the Church, wonderfully teaches this truth of faith: «Grant us, Lord, the grace to always know and practice good, and, since without you we cannot even exist, make us always live according to your will. Through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Mister” (Thursday I Lent).
Man is not made to act according to his own will, but to always do the will of God in everything.. The entire universe of creatures is made to always fulfill the will of its Creator, and it does so necessarily. And man, the only free creature in the visible world, is created to fulfill freely the will of the Lord. Now, in human actionthe causal line of good and evil are totally asymmetrical. Let us consider this truth, which is also fundamental to penetrate the mystery of grace-freedom.
Man can only produce good with the help of God, assisted by divine causality, which is universal, both in the order of nature and in that of grace. The Creator gives his creature being and acting continually. As he teaches Catechism: «God acts in the works of his creatures. It is the first cause that works in and through the second causes” (318). And this, as I have already said, occurs a fortiori in the order of grace: “without me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). “It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good pleasure” (Phil 2:13).
What man can produce alone is evil. Jacques Maritain explains it well, relying on the teaching of Saint Thomas:
Paradoxical language is unavoidable here: when man causes evil, “he has an initiative, but it is an initiative of non-action. The created will then ‘produces’ nothingness, produces non-being. And that is all it can do by itself… It withdraws — not by an action, but by a free non-doing or undoing — from the influence, bearing being and goodness, of the First Cause… This explains that phrase of Saint Thomas: ‘the first cause of the defect of grace is in us’ (STh I-II, 112, 3 ad 2m: [«but the first cause of the giving of grace is in God, according to Scripture: “Your perdition is from yourself, Israel; your help comes only from Me”, Hos 13:9]). There is, then, one line in which the creature is a first cause, but it is the line of nothingness and evil”. And he adds in a note: “When he turns aside from the divine motion, the motion of good, man is not freer than when he lets that motion act and acts well; but he is more alone… Man can be alone only in evil” (Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Problem of Evil, in a work by various authors, Evil Is Among Us, Fom. de la Cultura, Valencia 1959, 351-352).
The Christian action of man is, therefore, always passive-active: passive, in the philosophical sense of the term, in that receive the free gift of God: illumination, attraction, motion; and active, since freely receiving that divine help grants you want and act a good that would not be achieved on its own. Let’s see it in three maximum examples.
The Virgin Mary was Catholic. She was not Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian, nor Quietist or Lutheran, nor Jansenist: she was Catholic. The Full of Grace, that is, the Immaculate, the faithful Virgin, has no plans of her own to carry out; she is not capable of willing anything by herself. Her will can only move to will something when moved by the will of her Lord. The Blessed Virgin Mary expresses with complete perfection how she understands the life of grace:
She looks to her past and says: “the Mighty One has done great things in me”. And looking to her present and future, she says: “I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word”. In both sentences the verbs are passive. She understands perfectly that her whole life — past, present and future — is passive-active: it is the loving providence of God who, by his grace, acts in her mind, in her will and in her works, with the real collaboration of her permanent fiat. No question of generosity, nor other stories or tales. In her there is only absolute docility, infinite praise and gratitude, in total and perfect humility: “my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, because he has looked with kindness on the lowliness of his handmaid”.
Saint John the Baptist was also a practicing Catholic. He never authorized himself to will anything, however lofty and holy it might be, by himself, from his own will. He never wished to move except when moved by the will of God, by his grace. John the Baptist was like an illiterate child who, letting his father’s hand guide his own, writes in the book of his life a poem of heavenly beauty and holiness. And he also knew, enlightened by God, how to express this mystery perfectly: “A man must not take anything to himself unless it is given him from Heaven” (Jn 3:27). Nothing: neither more nor less, neither this nor that. He must do everything, only and precisely that which God wishes to do in him and with him… God’s gift is gratuitous, free, unpredictable: therefore it cannot be taken, as one takes an apple from a tree; it can only be received, asked for, awaited, sought and carried out.
It is significant that this phrase, “a man should not take anything unless it were given to him from heaven”, one of the most luminous of the Gospels, is so rarely cited. But it is understandable that this happens in voluntarist, Pelagian or semi-Pelagian environments, because it is antithetical to their erroneous approaches.
Jesus Christ, our Lord, is also Catholic and the Author of all Catholics. In him there is not the slightest shadow of Quietism or voluntarism. “The man Christ Jesus” (1Tim 2:5), from all eternity, in a unique and infinitely gratuitous predestination, is the Chosen One of the Father. And the divine Word, being the Son eternal of the eternal Father, once incarnate and born of the Virgin Mary, maintains throughout his earthly life an absolutely filial physiognomy. He does not move except when moved by the Father.
His continual personal relationship with the Father is revealed especially in the writings of the evangelist Saint John. There Jesus declares: “I live because of the Father” (6:57), and “the Father who dwells in me does his works… I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (14:10-11). He always understands his works as “the works that my Father gave me to do, those works that I do…” (5:36); “the works that I do in my Father’s name” (10:25; cf. 10:37-38). And therefore he says: “my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (4:34). “I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me” (6:38). Our Lord Jesus Christ is therefore psychologically and morally incapable of willing anything by his own will. He always moves moved by the Father: “truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing: whatever he does, the Son does likewise” (5:19). Nothing, he can do nothing: “I can do nothing on my own; as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me” (5:30). “I do nothing on my own” (8:28); “as the Father has commanded me, so I do” (14:12).
And this full identification between the will of Christ and that of the Father normally occurs with immense joy, because it is made with infinite love: “in that hour he was filled with joy in the Holy Spirit and said: I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because” etc. (Lk 10:21; the ES text says 10:31). At other times, however, it occurs with dread and anguish, sweating blood: “nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done” (22:42).
Author: Fr. José María Iraburu
