Operative and Cooperative Grace and the Question of Justification by Faith: A Contemporary Transposition

The Scholastic Tradition on gratia operans/cooperans

The language of gratia operans and gratia cooperans can be traced back at least to the debates between Augustine and his Pelagian opponents. ⁷ However, it is only in the scholastic era, with its more precise distinction between the natural and supernatural orders, that the language developed a more exact shape. As Lonergan notes, the distinction between the two orders made it possible ‘(1) to discuss the nature of grace without discussing liberty, (2) to discuss the nature of liberty without discussing grace, and (3) to work out the relations between grace and liberty.’ ⁸ It is in working out these relations that questions of operation and cooperation can arise.

We can identify some of the resolution to these questions at work in the Summa Theologiae I-II q111 a2, where Aquinas asks ‘Whether grace is fittingly divided into operating and cooperating grace?’ The question touches on the issues raised in the Lutheran–Catholic dialogue. Aquinas begins his response by claiming the authority of Augustine for the distinction: ‘God, by cooperating with us, perfects what He began by operating in us, since He who perfects by cooperation with such as are willing, begins by operating that they may will.’ ⁹ He then specifies the meaning of operating grace:

For the operation of an effect is not attributed to the thing moved but to the mover. Hence in that effect in which our mind is moved and does not move, but in which God is the sole mover, the operation is attributed to God, and it is with reference to this that we speak of ‘operating grace.’

We can think of this operating grace as the grace of conversion, whereby God takes out our heart of stone and puts in a heart of flesh. It is an operation ‘in which God is the sole mover,’ thus marking a clear rejection of a Pelagian or semi-Pelagian position which would attribute any human initiative in the origins of the life of grace. Only then does Aquinas go on to speak of cooperating: ‘But in that effect in which our mind both moves and is moved, the operation is not only attributed to God, but also to the soul; and it is with reference to this that we speak of “cooperating grace.”’ This leads to the following conclusion:

Now there is a double act in us. First, there is the interior act of the will, and with regard to this act the will is a thing moved, and God is the mover; and especially when the will, which hitherto willed evil, begins to will good. And hence, inasmuch as God moves the human mind to this act, we speak of operating grace. But there is another, exterior act; and since it is commanded by the will, as was shown above the operation of this act is attributed to the will.

However, even in relation to the exterior act, God acts ‘by strengthening our will interiorly so as to attain to the act, and by granting outwardly the capability of operating.’ This is the context in which we can ‘speak of cooperating grace.’ In responding to the various objections he goes on to note, ‘movement [of the will] is not the cause of grace, but the effect’ (ad2) and further ‘operating and cooperating grace are the same grace; but are distinguished by their different effects’ (ad4).

In a sense all this seems relatively straightforward, except that behind the scenes are multiple assumptions about divine causality and instrumentality, about primary and secondary causation, about the nature of freedom and its relationship to intellect, and so on, so that matters can become complicated very quickly. In the ongoing tradition of Thomism there were those who so stressed divine causality as to make human freedom seem nonexistent in relation to grace (Banezians) and those who so stressed human freedom as to neglect the priority of grace (Molinists). ¹⁰ Much of this debate worked itself out not just directly in relation to issues of operating and cooperating but in terms of the multiple assumptions behind the scenes. Significantly almost exactly parallel debates occurred within Protestant circles between the Calvinist and the Arminian positions on salvation. ¹¹ These are the self-same issues that can be found in one form or another in the Lutheran–Catholic dialogue.

The basic question that needs to be addressed is, for what am I responsible? ¹² More precisely, what is there in human consciousness that is spontaneous and what is there in consciousness that I am responsible for making happen, in which I can exercise some degree of control? Some examples may clarify the situation. Insights are spontaneous. We can set the conditions of enquiry, gather the data and ask the right questions. But whether or not there is an insight is beyond our immediate control. This lack of control is particularly evident in the serendipitous insights that often seem to come from nowhere and may at times be life-changing. For such events within consciousness I am not responsible. Similarly some desires seem to arise spontaneously and emerge into consciousness. For such desires I am not responsible. On the other hand the decisions I make in relation to those desires is something for which I can be held accountable. I am responsible for my decisions in a way in which I am not responsible (or at least, as responsible) for my desires. Certainly this question of responsibility lies behind the Catholic notion of merit or meritorious acts which pertain to the concept of cooperation. However, even prescinding from the graced context, we need to be able to pin down just precisely where our responsibility lies. This is the question which I believe lies at the heart of Doran’s notion of ‘autonomous spiritual procession.’ However, before moving in that direction, I need to spell out something of the context in which Doran develops this term, because it arises not in relation to the set of issues raised above, but in relation to the trinitarian psychological analogy.

The Context of Doran’s Transposition

What then is Doran’s context? In his latest book, The Trinity in History: A Theology of Divine Missions Vol.1 Missions and Processions, Doran brings together a number of elements from Lonergan’s trinitarian theology and the theology of grace to propose a new foundation for systematic theology based on Lonergan’s four-point hypothesis and Doran’s efforts to develop a new ‘supernatural’ psychological analogy for the Trinity drawing upon the four-point hypothesis and its complications. ¹³ While I do not intend to enter into a full exposition of this remarkable work at this time, there are elements I shall draw upon to illustrate the issues at stake.

Doran begins with an account of what might be called the ‘natural’ psychological analogy as found in Augustine and Aquinas, and refined in Lonergan’s writings on the Trinity. ¹⁴ In seeking analogies for the trinitarian processions Lonergan considers two distinct types of procession: processions from potency to act (processio operationis) and procession from act to act (processio operati). ¹⁵ An example of the first would be the emergence of an insight from the potency of the intellect. Wonder is intellect in potency, insight is intellect in act. The movement from enquiry to understanding is from potency to act. However, God is pure act without potency, so this will not be a suitable place to find an analogy for the trinitarian processions. An example of the second, from act to act, is the procession of a concept from an act of understanding. Insight is intellect in act, but from insight there emerges a new act which is the concept. I form the concept because I understand. This movement from the act of understanding to the creation of a concept may then form the basis of an analogy, in this case, for the procession of the Word from the Father. Or, as Aquinas will state it in relation to the question whether there are processions in God:

For whenever we understand, by the very fact of understanding there proceeds something within us, which is a conception of the object understood, a conception issuing from our intellectual power and proceeding from our knowledge of that object. (STh I q.27 a1)

The term Aquinas will use to speak of this procession is ‘intelligible emanation’ (emanatio intelligibilis). As Doran explains, the term ‘intelligible’ is used in a double sense of being both intelligible and intelligent, that is, under the control of intelligence itself. ¹⁶ The proceeding word is not just caused by my understanding, but is because I understand. In this sense it is a personal act in which I am personally invested.

While this is perhaps less evident in relation to the formation of a concept it becomes clearer in relation to the second intellectual act, that of judging. Here in the terms Lonergan uses in Insight we move from a grasp of the virtually unconditioned (there are conditions to be fulfilled and in fact they are fulfilled) to the inner word of judgment, the yes, no, perhaps, possibly and so on. Here the element of personal act is far more evident—as Lonergan quips, ‘everyone complains of his memory but no one of his judgment.’ Judgment involves ‘personal commitment.’ ¹⁷ Because I grasp the fulfilment of the needed conditions I am rationally required to pass judgment. However, I may judge rashly before there is sufficient evidence, or be too timid waiting for further evidence when what is available suffices. This element of personal responsibility is heightened when the judgment is a judgment of value, what Aquinas speaks of as a word of the heart (verbum cordis). Here my judgments of value become a statement of my basic existential stance in relation to the world.

Each of these three examples of procession, of concept, judgment of fact and judgment of value, is an example of a procession from act to act, which is not just caused by the prior intelligent and reasonable act of the subject, but is because of that prior intelligent and reasonable grasp of the subject. As an intelligent and reasonable subject I am responsible for these acts of concept formation and judgment. This is an important observation because it enlarges the field of responsibility beyond what is classically called the will, to include intellectual acts as well as volitional acts. In fact we find here an example of the breakdown of the faculty psychology based on distinct faculties of the intellect/reason/mind and the will. Personal commitment and responsibility emerges prior to acts of willing.

Part of the difficulty lies in the use of the term intelligible emanation with regard to the procession of a judgment of value, and more pressingly with the analogy for the procession of the Holy Spirit, of the love which emerges from a judgment of value. To use the term ‘intelligible and intelligent’ in these cases seems to imply an overly intellectualist account of the two processions. Indeed the later work of Lonergan notes the significant role of intentional feeling as the ‘mass, momentum, drive [and] power’ of intentional consciousness so affectivity needs also to be taken into account. ¹⁸ Doran has also attempted to specify more precisely the structure of a judgment of value, identifying three modes of operation of the judgment of value, corresponding to three forms of Ignatian election. ¹⁹

This difficulty is further compounded in the later work of Lonergan where he proposes a different type of analogy, based not on an act of understanding and judgment but on a state of being in love in an unrestricted fashion.

The psychological analogy, then, has its starting point in that higher synthesis of intellectual, rational and moral consciousness that is the dynamic state of being in love. Such love manifests itself in its judgments of value. And the judgments of value are carried out in the decisions that are acts of loving. Such is the analogy found in the creature. Now in God the origin is the Father, in the New Testament named ho theos, who is identified with agape (I John 4:8,16). Such love expresses itself in its word, its Logos, its verbum spirans amorem, which is a judgment of value. The judgment of value is sincere, and so it grounds the Proceeding Love that is identified with the Holy Spirit. ²⁰

Here, even more than the two cases considered above, the terminology of ‘intelligible emanations’ begins to break down. ²¹ This new analogy by Lonergan provides some context both for Doran’s attempt to formulate a supernatural psychological analogy, with links to the four-point hypothesis, and for an alternate terminology for intelligible emanations.

Autonomous Spiritual Procession and Cooperation

The terminology Doran adopts as an alternative is ‘autonomous spiritual procession.’ ²² While the terminology is his, the actual content of the term is largely derived from Lonergan’s work on the Trinity. ²³ In that work Lonergan provides a quite precise technical definition of intelligible emanation as ‘the conscious origin of a real, natural, and conscious act from a real, natural and conscious act, both within intellectual consciousness and also by virtue of intellectual consciousness itself as determined by the prior act.’ ²⁴ In a more shorthand form Doran states it as ‘what proceeds is because of and in accord with or in proportion to that from which it proceeds.’ ²⁵ Doran tweaks Lonergan’s technical definition by replacing the term ‘intellectual consciousness’ with the more general term ‘spiritual dimension of consciousness’ to embrace the full spiritual reality of intelligent, reasonable, responsible and loving consciousness:

Thus, I would define ‘autonomous spiritual procession’ as the conscious origination of a real, natural and conscious act from a real, natural and conscious act, both within the spiritual dimension of consciousness and also by virtue of the spiritual dimension of consciousness itself as determined by the prior act. ²⁶

So far, while I have alluded to both Lonergan’s four-point hypothesis and Doran’s proposed supernatural psychological analogy, I have avoided providing details. All that has been said above could be argued without bringing in such details which would only add unnecessary complication. However, I shall now seek to bring in some elements of both these issues in order to make the fairly direct connection with the original question of this paper, that of cooperation.

I shall begin with just two elements of the four-point hypothesis. Lonergan makes a connection between the two mutually defining relations of active spiration and passive spiration and two created participations of the divine nature, sanctifying grace and the habit of charity: ‘sanctifying grace is a participation of active spiration, and so has a special relation to the Holy Spirit; … the habit of charity is a participation of passive spiration, and so has a special relation to the Father and the Son.’ ²⁷ The term of the relation of active spiration is the Holy Spirit, who is breathed forth by the Father and the Son. ²⁸ In the experience of sanctifying grace we receive the gift of the Spirit as breathed forth within us by the Father and the Son. Simultaneously with this indwelling there is a reciprocal relation within us whose term is the Father and the Son, the relation of passive spiration through which we share in the common work of the Father and Son, the habit of charity. These two created participations are thus two aspects of the one action of grace, they reside within human consciousness and are both within the ‘spiritual dimension of consciousness,’ not in the sensitive psyche. ²⁹ Nonetheless, there is a certain ordering here inasmuch as the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, so too the habit of charity ‘proceeds’ in some sense from sanctifying grace. Here we can identify the beginnings of Doran’s interest in a supernatural psychological analogy. These two supernatural participations in the divine life are analogous in some sense to the trinitarian relations in their relationship to one another.

How then does this relate to the question of cooperation in relation to grace? ³⁰ If the relationship between these two aspects of grace, sanctifying grace and the habit of charity, is in some sense analogous to the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, then we could conclude that the relation between the habit of charity (or perhaps more precisely individual acts within that habit) and sanctifying grace is one of an autonomous spiritual procession. Those acts within the habit of charity are ‘because of and in accord with or in proportion to the prior’ gift of sanctifying grace, yet they are our acts, autonomous, and hence something for which we have some responsibility. Here we may quote Aquinas again:

First, there is the interior act of the will, and with regard to this act the will is a thing moved, and God is the mover; and especially when the will, which hitherto willed evil, begins to will good. And hence, inasmuch as God moves the human mind to this act, we speak of operating grace. But there is another, exterior act; and since it is commanded by the will, as was shown above the operation of this act is attributed to the will. (STh I q.27 a1)

And further, the ‘movement [of the will] is not the cause of grace, but the effect’ (ad2) and further ‘operating and cooperating grace are the same grace; but are distinguished by their different effects’ (ad4). If this is the case then the notion of autonomous spiritual procession captures in more technical and precise language what is meant by the term cooperation in the debates over cooperation and justification.

If we can move from this very technical and precise language to a more communicative mode, what is being said here was ably captured decades ago by Sebastian Moore. Moore loved playing with words such as desirable and desire-able. We are desire-able to the extent that we are desirable: ‘This sense of myself as desirable is the basis of all my relating. For it is the heart of desiring. It is because I am desirable that I am desire-able.’ ³¹ Transposing that into our present discussion, in the act of gracing us God makes us divinely desirable (sanctifying grace), by the gift of the Holy Spirit, and to the extent that we are divinely desirable we are also divinely desire-able (habit of charity).

We can perhaps push the matter further. If in sanctifying grace we experience the Father and the Son breathing forth the Holy Spirit within us, is there also within consciousness something that corresponds to the procession of the Son from the Father, within that same experience? Here we may take a clue from Aquinas:

Augustine calls ‘faith that worketh by charity’ grace, since the act of faith of him that worketh by charity is the first act by which sanctifying grace is manifested. (STh 1-2 q110 a3 ad 1)

Following Aquinas in this regard, the act of faith is the ‘first act by which sanctifying grace is manifest.’ Here the reference is to what the scholastics called ‘formed faith,’ not the unformed faith of one who lacks charity. From the state of sanctifying grace there proceeds an act of faith, which is prior to acts which emerge from the habit of charity. It is our ‘yes’ of faith joined to the eternal ‘Yes’ that is the Word affirming divine meaning, truth, and goodness. Can we find in this relationship between sanctifying grace and the act of faith some analogy with the procession of the Word from the Father? Is our act of faith ‘because of and in accord with or in proportion to the prior’ act of sanctification effected operatively by God? Here it perhaps helps to not think of faith in terms of the assent of the intellect to what has been revealed as in Aquinas, but to what Lonergan refers to as a ‘knowledge born of religious love,’ that is, more specifically the existential judgments of value that arise from the dynamic state of consciousness produced by God’s love flooding our hearts. This gift gives us the ‘eyes of love’ so that we come to new judgments about the world, specifically about what constitutes progress and what constitutes decline. This knowledge is more to do with affectivity than cognition, what the tradition might refer to as connatural knowledge. Referring to Pascal’s adage, Lonergan speaks of this faith as the ‘reasons of the heart that reason does not know.’ ³²

These questions take us into the heart of the debate about grace, faith, and justification that so dominated the debates between Lutherans and Catholics during the Reformation and remain evident in the more recent Lutheran–Catholic dialogue. If we conceive of faith as an example of an ‘autonomous spiritual procession’ that emerges ‘because of and in accord with or in proportion to the prior’ act of grace then it enjoys a certain autonomy and we retain some responsibility for it. It is truly my act of faith, not just some spontaneous event within my consciousness that just happens regardless of any control on my part. At the same time it is not the full use of our freedom that we find in a decision (or an act of will, if you like), but more like the autonomy of a judgment of value coming to its proper term. This may indeed explain where the difficulty arises in the different emphases of Lutherans and Catholics in relation to justification and the role of faith. On the one hand it is not the full exercise of freedom found in a decision, as the Lutheran side insists; on the other hand, as the Catholics respond, there is a genuinely existential moment, the commitment of a judgment of value, which emerges because of and in accord with or in proportion to the act of divine grace.

Conclusion

In the introduction to this paper I quoted Avery Dulles in relation to the Lutheran–Catholic dialogue requiring ‘some other standard than the decrees of Trent’ in order for some future resolution to emerge in relation to the differing approaches of the two sides. ³³ The above proposal, grounded in Doran’s recent trinitarian explorations, may indeed provide some possibility for such a standard to be developed. For Luther the doctrine of justification by faith alone was that by which the Church stands or falls (articulus stantis er cadentis ecclesiae). However, even the most ardent defence of the classic Lutheran doctrine might concede that there are other doctrines, such as that of the Trinity, which are also clearly central to the Christian life. One of the ironies of the present paper is that it has drawn a direct link between the issue of justification by faith with its questions of operation and cooperation and a theological exploration of the trinitarian processions and our analogical attempts to understand them.