Sufficient grace to elude formally mortal sins or sins of grave matter?

[Miriam_M]

St.Columba, notice this:  St. Thomas says that acting from concupiscence is in NO way involuntary (unlike acting from fear).  I think this should be obvious.

Yes, Thomas' second volume includes a section on the necessity of grace, in which he also says that, while it is impossible to avoid venial sin throughout an entire lifetime (because of concupiscence), it is not impossible to refrain from mortal sin -- because that is what grace is all about -- the strength/assistance to avoid mortal sin.  He also distinguishes between temptation and sin -- maybe in that same section, maybe elsewhere.

And in that section he speaks quite a bit about the function of the will with regard to sin.

[Miriam_M]

It is a dogma of the faith that outside of brain disease (which can produce compulsion) or coercion from the outside, it is always possible to resist temptations to sin. 

Hi Miriam.  I am interested if you could provide an authoritative quote for this assertion.

If it is "always possible to resist sin", then it is possible to resist every venial sin through one's whole life.  Is that a claim you would like to make, as a logical consequence of your stated assertion?

Thanks for your valuable input Miriam.

http://catholicharboroffaithandmorals.com/Lead%20us%20not%20into%20Temptation.html

http://tradicat.blogspot.com/2015/10/dogmas-of-catholic-faith-de-fide.html

Father Peter Carota, referenced as a source at the top of that list ^ died a year or two ago.  He was an FSSP priest.  My own trad priest has mentioned also that grace is always available against every temptation. The fact is also implied in the various dogmas about the Sacraments, because if grace is only sometimes available, then the sacraments have no lasting power.  Sacraments such as Baptism, which provides the indelible mark, and Confirmation, which confers the Holy Spirit upon the recipients.  If the Holy Spirit is only sometimes available and sometimes not, then God is not infinite and eternal, which is a heresy.

Some of this is confirmed in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, by Ott.

Also, I thought I had posted this reference before.  I think this is Part VI.

God the Sanctifier
There is a supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul, which precedes the free act of the will.
There is a supernatural influence of God in the faculties of the soul which coincides in time with man's free act of will.
For every salutary act, internal supernatural grace of God (gratia elevans) is absolutely necessary.
Internal supernatural grace is absolutely necessary for the beginning of faith and salvation.
Without the special help of God, the justified cannot persevere to the end in justification.
The justified person is not able for his whole life long to avoid sins, even venial sins, without the special privilege of the grace of God.
Even in the fallen state, man can, by his natural intellectual power, know religious and moral truths.
For the performance of a morally good action, sanctifying grace is not required.
In the state of fallen nature, it is morally impossible for man without supernatural Revelation, to know easily, with absolute certainty, and without admixture of error, all religious and moral truths of the natural order.
Grace cannot be merited by natural works either de condigno or de congruo.
God gives all the just sufficient grace for the observation of the divine commandments.
God, by His eternal resolve of Will, has predetermined certain men to eternal blessedness.
God, by an eternal resolve of His Will, predestines certain men, on account of their foreseen sins, to eternal rejection.
The human will remains free under the influence of efficacious grace, which is not irresistible.
There is grace which is truly sufficient and yet remains inefficacious.
The causes of Justification. (Defined by the Council of Trent) :
The final cause is the honour of God and of Christ and the eternal life of men.
The efficient cause is the mercy of God.
The meritorious cause is Jesus Christ, who as mediator between God and men, has made atonement for us and merited the grace by which we are justified.
The instrumental cause of the first justification is the Sacrament of Baptism. Thus it defines that Faith is a necessary precondition for justification (of adults).
The formal cause is God's Justice, not by which He Himself is just, but which He makes us just, that is, Sanctifying Grace.
The sinner can and must prepare himself by the help of actual grace for the reception of the grace by which he is justified.
The justification of an adult is not possible without faith.
Besides faith, further acts of disposition must be present.
Sanctifying grace sanctifies the soul.
Sanctifying grace makes the just man a friend of God.
Sanctifying grace makes the just man a child of God and gives him a claim to the inheritance of heaven.
The three Divine or theological virtues of faith, hope and charity are infused with sanctifying grace.
Without special Divine Revelation no one can know with the certainty of faith, if he be in the state of grace.
The degree of justifying grace is not identical in all the just.
Grace can be increased by good works.
The grace by which we are justified may be lost, and is lost by every grievous sin.
By his good works, the justified man really acquires a claim to supernatural reward from God.
A just man merits for himself through each good work an increase of sanctifying grace, eternal life (if death finds him in the state of grace) and an increase in heavenly glory.

https://www.theworkofgod.org/dogmas.htm#top

[St. Columba]

Yes, Thomas' second volume includes a section on the necessity of grace, in which he also says that, while it is impossible to avoid venial sin throughout an entire lifetime (because of concupiscence), it is not impossible to refrain from mortal sin -- because that is what grace is all about -- the strength/assistance to avoid mortal sin.  He also distinguishes between temptation and sin -- maybe in that same section, maybe elsewhere.

Thank Miriam, but I am still unsure of your position: does God give sufficient grace to refrain from all sin, or just mortal sin?

If God gives sufficient grace (to all the just??) to observe the divine commandments, that would seem to suggest the former, whereas if it is not possible to avoid venial sin through one's entire life, as Trent taught as well, that seems to suggest the latter.

[nmoerbeek]

St. Columba my friend,

I think you will find this chapter from St. Alphonsus's Prayer the Great Means of Salvation very helpful.

https://archive.org/stream/TheCompleteAsceticalWorksOfSt.Alphonsusvolume3/thecompleteascet03liguuoftnew#page/n141/mode/2up

This chapter treats of the question if God gives grace to hardened sinners to avoid mortal sin and the Good Doctor in order to answer this question winds up addressing your question as well.  It is quite a few pages but I think it treats the topic most completely.  The long and short is that: God gives us grace to avoid committing a mortal sin, but also a person can people themselves in a situation where they cannot resist committing mortal sin if they are a hardened sinner, however that same person they can obtain grace to avoid mortal sin again if they do so by prayer.  I am afraid my summary doesn't do it justice and it would be best to just read what St. Alphonsus says on the matter himself.

[Miriam_M]

Yes, Thomas' second volume includes a section on the necessity of grace, in which he also says that, while it is impossible to avoid venial sin throughout an entire lifetime (because of concupiscence), it is not impossible to refrain from mortal sin -- because that is what grace is all about -- the strength/assistance to avoid mortal sin.  He also distinguishes between temptation and sin -- maybe in that same section, maybe elsewhere.

Thank Miriam, but I am still unsure of your position: does God give sufficient grace to refrain from all sin, or just mortal sin?

If God gives sufficient grace (to all the just??) to observe the divine commandments, that would seem to suggest the former, whereas if it is not possible to avoid venial sin through one's entire life, as Trent taught as well, that seems to suggest the latter.

"My position" is of no consequence, unless my position is identical to the position of the Catholic Church.   

St. Thomas says, and I'm sure the Fathers agree, that it is not possible to avoid venial sin throughout one's life because of concupiscence.  We call our venial sins also violations of the Commandments, but they are so to a lesser degree.  Technically, violation of the Commandments is what constitutes mortal sin.

The whole business about justification is complicated, but the theology behind it need not concern us, and it would take too long to go into.

Only Our Lady was able to avoid all sin.  We cannot, but it is possible for any other human being to avoid all mortal sin, even though for most people it will be unlikely in a full lifetime.  We sin mortally because it gives us some form of temporary pleasure, escape, or self-protection (Vanity or defense against punishment) at the immediate moment.  All we're doing is choosing not to avail ourselves of the always-accessible graces (and prayer) to make the moral choice instead of the immoral one.

[Miriam_M]

a person can people themselves

Did you mean "place" themselves?

in a situation where they cannot resist committing mortal sin if they are a hardened sinner,

But before that sinner became hardened in his sin, graces were available to him to resist that sin.  He is still responsible, gravely, for putting himself in the position of being a hardened sinner.  Being a hardened sinner may or may not mitigate his temporal punishment, but it does not lessen the objective character of his sin nor his subjective responsibility for it.

This is why I laid out the simulated Confession I did in an earlier post on this thread.

[nmoerbeek]

a person can people themselves

Did you mean "place" themselves?

in a situation where they cannot resist committing mortal sin if they are a hardened sinner,

But before that sinner became hardened in his sin, graces were available to him to resist that sin.  He is still responsible, gravely, for putting himself in the position of being a hardened sinner.  Being a hardened sinner may or may not mitigate his temporal punishment, but it does not lessen the objective character of his sin nor his subjective responsibility for it.

This is why I laid out the simulated Confession I did in an earlier post on this thread.

Yes, I meant place themselves.

As to your second point,  I wasn't addressing anything that you posted, but addressing the OP, that is why I did not quote you.  I think St. Alphonsus's work can speak for itself without our commentary around it, most notably he includes authorities and specific works to back up his positions. 

[Miriam_M]

a person can people themselves

Did you mean "place" themselves?

in a situation where they cannot resist committing mortal sin if they are a hardened sinner,

But before that sinner became hardened in his sin, graces were available to him to resist that sin.  He is still responsible, gravely, for putting himself in the position of being a hardened sinner.  Being a hardened sinner may or may not mitigate his temporal punishment, but it does not lessen the objective character of his sin nor his subjective responsibility for it.

This is why I laid out the simulated Confession I did in an earlier post on this thread.

Yes, I meant place themselves.

As to your second point,  I wasn't addressing anything that you posted, but addressing the OP, that is why I did not quote you.  I think St. Alphonsus's work can speak for itself without our commentary around it, most notably he includes authorities and specific works to back up his positions.

I didn't say that you were addressing anything I posted.  I'm saying that hardened sinners become that way out of completely free will.  It's a process, obviously.  It doesn't happen overnight.  They willed the first sin, just as Adam did, and paid the consequences.  The repetitions of the sins of the eventually hardened sinner were, earlier on, preventable.  St. Alphonsus agrees with this position on pages 142-149.  I would copy and paste the full refutation of the idea that a sinner, including a hardened sinner, "cannot avoid" his sin, but it's not possible to do so from that source.

The modern Church (even, also) agrees with Alphonsus' position (who himself, by the way, agrees with St. Thomas and other authorities) in that -- and this is the point Alphonsus makes -- remaining in a state of mortal sin (by repeated mortal sin) keeps us out of sanctifying grace, and the longer we are removed from active friendship with God, the harder it becomes to resist not only that mortal sin but all mortal sin. This is a doctrine of the Church -- that the more entrenched the habit of mortal sin, the more difficult (not impossible) it becomes to turn away from it and from other sin.  And of course that also corresponds to human experience.

[Miriam_M]

If God gives sufficient grace (to all the just??)

All you need to know is that, while our unrighteousness is connected to Adam, our righteousness (justification) is brought about by Christ.  That does not make us equal with Christ in His perfect righteousness, obviously.  It makes us partakers of His righteousness because of Redemption -- partakers through adoption as sons of God and through the activation of the sacraments of initiation.

Sufficient grace is provided through Christ's redemption (which justifies us, although we did not merit that justification; He merited it for us in satisfaction for our sins because Justice required that satisfaction.)

[james03]

My question is: does God give sufficient grace to avoid formal mortal sins (grave matter, full knowledge, full consent all present), or does He give sufficient grace to avoid all sins that are grave matter?

I find this question betrays a Lutheran premise, i.e. that justification is a legal declaration and we are still dung hills, though covered with snow.

Is Sanctifying Grace partaking of the Divine, or is it merely a legal declaration?

[St. Columba]

St. Thomas:

"Reply to Objection 1. When man is in a state of grace, he can avoid all mortal sins, and each single one; and he can avoid each single venial sin, but not all"

(found here: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4087.htm)

The bold seems nonsensical.  If man, after the fall, cannot possibly avoid all venial sins (as the Council of Trent, and St. Thomas, clearly teach), then how can he have the grace to avoid each of them, when considered in isolation?

I don't understand.

[Miriam_M]

I should have added at least page 150 to my previous post.

Beginning on page 149....
[bolding mine]

St. Augustine and St. Thomas go so far as to say that God would be unjust and cruel if he obliged anyone to a command which he could not keep.  St. Augustine says, "It is the deepest injustice to reckon any one guilty of sin for not doing that which he could not do."  And St. Thomas: "God is not more cruel than man; but it is reckoned cruelty in a man to oblige a person by law to do that which he cannot fulfill; therefore, we must by no means imagine this of God."  "It is however different," he says, "when it is through his own neglect that he has not the grace to be able to keep the commandments,"  which properly means when man neglects to avail himself of the remote grace of prayer, in order to obtain the proximate grace to enable him to keep the law, as the Council of Trent teaches:  "God does not command impossibilities, but by commanding, admonishes you to do what you can, and to ask for what is beyond your power; and by his help, enables you to do it.

There follows a brief diversion in which St. Alphonsus discusses original sin vs. personal sin, and alludes to some other authorities, but he returns to the above argument, reaffirming the availability of grace in the conquest of personal sin.

[Non Nobis]

St. Thomas:

"Reply to Objection 1. When man is in a state of grace, he can avoid all mortal sins, and each single one; and he can avoid each single venial sin, but not all"

(found here: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4087.htm)

The bold seems nonsensical.  If man, after the fall, cannot possibly avoid all venial sins (as the Council of Trent, and St. Thomas, clearly teach), then how can he have the grace to avoid each of them, when considered in isolation?

I don't understand.

"One can calculate the answer to any individual math question [it is possible taken one at a time], but for an imperfect human being it is [impossible= practically speaking impossible] that he should get them ALL right"

And I think St. Thomas is talking about involuntary venial sins in particular, and those arising from concupiscence.  He gives this example:

S.T. II IIae Q 109 Article 8. Whether man without grace can avoid sin?

...But in the state of corrupt nature man needs grace to heal his nature in order that he may entirely abstain from sin. And in the present life this healing is wrought in the mind—the carnal appetite being not yet restored. Hence the Apostle (Romans 7:25) says in the person of one who is restored: "I myself, with the mind, serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin." And in this state man can abstain from all mortal sin, which takes its stand in his reason, as stated above (I-II:74:5); but man cannot abstain from all venial sin on account of the corruption of his lower appetite of sensuality. For man can, indeed, repress each of its movements (and hence they are sinful and voluntary), but not all, because whilst he is resisting one, another may arise, and also because the reason is always alert to avoid these movements, as was said above (I-II:74:3 ad 2).

The reason is alert to temptations of concupiscence, but then other sins spring up almost involuntarily, as he explains in the in the referenced text:

I-II:74:3 ad 2
... this corruption of the "fomes" [concupiscence] does not hinder man from using his rational will to check individual inordinate movements, if he be presentient to them, for instance by turning his thoughts to other things. Yet while he is turning his thoughts to something else, an inordinate movement may arise about this also: thus when a man, in order to avoid the movements of concupiscence, turns his thoughts away from carnal pleasures, to the considerations of science, sometimes an unpremeditated movement of vainglory will arise. Consequently, a man cannot avoid all such movements, on account of the aforesaid corruption: but it is enough, for the conditions of a voluntary sin, that he be able to avoid each single one.

We can avoid each sin one at a time, but we can't have the sinlessness of Our Lady.

[St. Columba]

... this corruption of the "fomes" [concupiscence] does not hinder man from using his rational will to check individual inordinate movements, if he be presentient to them, for instance by turning his thoughts to other things. Yet while he is turning his thoughts to something else, an inordinate movement may arise about this also: thus when a man, in order to avoid the movements of concupiscence, turns his thoughts away from carnal pleasures, to the considerations of science, sometimes an unpremeditated movement of vainglory will arise. Consequently, a man cannot avoid all such movements, on account of the aforesaid corruption: but it is enough, for the conditions of a voluntary sin, that he be able to avoid each single one.

I still have trouble with this.  Are these unpremeditated movements of vainglory supposed to be sins or not?  If not, then the point seems moot.  If the movements are venial, then, when taken in isolation, they must be possible to avoid.

It seems St. Thomas might be saying that every voluntary venial sin can be avoided, but not involuntary ones. 

Are involuntary movements of concupiscence venial sins?  I should think not.

If every venial sin can be avoided, then they all can, in theory.  To say that nobody actually will is not the same thing as saying that the grace is not available to avoid every venial sin (the same thing as all venial sins).

The waters are further muddied when we introduce the idea that partial deliberation/consent can be present when dealing with movements of concupiscence.  For example, sexual thoughts might enter my mind while I am in the process of falling asleep, and my will quasi-consents.  A venial sin is committed, say.  Was there sufficient grace to avoid this venial sin?

[nmoerbeek]

... this corruption of the "fomes" [concupiscence] does not hinder man from using his rational will to check individual inordinate movements, if he be presentient to them, for instance by turning his thoughts to other things. Yet while he is turning his thoughts to something else, an inordinate movement may arise about this also: thus when a man, in order to avoid the movements of concupiscence, turns his thoughts away from carnal pleasures, to the considerations of science, sometimes an unpremeditated movement of vainglory will arise. Consequently, a man cannot avoid all such movements, on account of the aforesaid corruption: but it is enough, for the conditions of a voluntary sin, that he be able to avoid each single one.

I still have trouble with this.  Are these unpremeditated movements of vainglory supposed to be sins or not?  If not, then the point seems moot.  If the movements are venial, then, when taken in isolation, they must be possible to avoid.

It seems St. Thomas might be saying that every voluntary venial sin can be avoided, but not involuntary ones. 

Are involuntary movements of concupiscence venial sins?  I should think not.

If every venial sin can be avoided, then they all can, in theory.  To say that nobody actually will is not the same thing as saying that the grace is not available to avoid every venial sin (the same thing as all venial sins).

The waters are further muddied when we introduce the idea that partial deliberation/consent can be present when dealing with movements of concupiscence.  For example, sexual thoughts might enter my mind while I am in the process of falling asleep, and my will quasi-consents.  A venial sin is committed, say.  Was there sufficient grace to avoid this venial sin?

As we conform our lives with grace we are able to resist venial sins, though grace was always there our wills were not always docile to it.  So we learn to resist venial sin by degree.  At a certain level this stuff does become somewhat mysterious, but when we consider that the Saints all seem to reach a stage in there prayer life where it is constant and uninterrupted no matter what they are doing, it seems possible that through this uninterrupted prayer that they too by special grace are able to resist these type of quasi consents.

Through grace they have a somewhat perfect watchfulness over their souls, so perhaps such occasions of semi deliberate sin are not present.  While we, who are so sinful, have many graces to conform our lives to first before this great gift of perfect watchfulness, and as such have many occasions to quasi consent because concupiscence still has a strong hold over us.

St. Bernards treatise, Of Grace and Free Will, was very influential in me coming to this opinion.