In
the last article, I began to address the Catholic understanding of grace, as
opposed to common Protestant beliefs regarding God’s grace. In order to
understand grace, we must understand sin, first. So, in brief, I began
retelling the story of humankind’s original loss of grace (Part I). In summary,
we found that in choosing behavior and actions outside of the Love of God, we
were also deprived, or disassociated, from the Life of God within us, which was
the cause of humankind’s original status of holiness and justice that are
founded upon Love itself. Simply, stepping outside of the relationship with
Love and Life itself, we lost that same Love and Life, called “grace.” (CCC,
417,418).
Through
our original loss of grace, our parents found themselves in a lacking of
fullness. Because of that lack, that missing piece, it was impossible that
grace be received through inheritance ever again. Instead, it became the
natural state in which humans were born – deprived of the grace of God. What one
does not have, cannot be given. We call this “original sin,” in a positive
manner, rather than the passive.
Fast
forward thousands of years, when the Law was given to the people of Israel
through Moses. Until that time, there was only the Natural Law, for which all
humankind through reason was capable of deducing. This included things like
“There is one God,” and “Thou shalt not murder.” These laws are understood from
the natural reason given to humankind, without the aid of Divine Revelation.
Moses,
however, was given a Divine Law (inspired by God, who is Love). In this Law,
the Israelites were called to a greater holiness than the rest of the world.
This is their priesthood to the nations. In the Law was the Wisdom of God, and
it showed forth the true call to holiness, justice and mercy that humankind was
called to: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord
require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with
your God? (Micah 6:8 NRSVCE)”
The
purpose of the Law, though, is not only to call us to love our neighbor and
God, our Life, but to show where we stand in relation to our original purpose
of love: it shows that we are sinners, in need of grace. St. Paul wrote extensively
about the law and grace in his letter to the Romans. In it, he explained that
the Law itself has not the ability to bring eternal life, simply because it
does not empower us to fulfill the just requirements of the Law; it merely
teaches us where we lack in justice, since we have all fallen short of it.
In
this regard, let us paint an image for the mind to show just what the
relationship is between the Law, sin, death and Life:
Imagine,
if you will, a sea of water, above which is an abundance of open air. Let us
imagine that the air itself represents God and his being of Love and our source
of Life. Humans, when fallen out of grace and into sin (error), are separated
from the air and plunged into the sea, under the water. The Law, which is
merely the objective reality of what is holy and good, consisting of love, is
the object of obstruction between the sea of water and the air. Perhaps we can
imagine the Law to be a slab of frozen ice over the sea, which keeps us from
accessing the fullness of Life, the air.
That
slab of ice – the Law – is continually keeping us down under water, preventing
us from full access to the air (God/ Life). That is, the Law is continually condemning us, because we
have fallen out of fulfilling its goodness. The Law only sheds light on the
reality of our sin and, therefore, keeps us under the oppression of death. The
Law itself can never become a means by which humans can freely access the God,
who is Life and Love. The Law can never provide a way back to Life, to breathe
that wonderful air in again fully. We will end the metaphor here, but it could
continue.
St.
Paul describes this in his own method fairly comprehensively (Rom. 5-8).
Although he is mostly speaking about the Jewish ritual laws of circumcision and
other requirements that Gentiles did not fulfill, it serves the same purpose as
the full Law. At one point, he tells us what the solution is to our continual
guilt under the Law:
For the law of the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has
done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son
in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the
flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who
walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Rom. 8:2-4
NRSVCE)
Of course, the Law, though good, always condemns us. But the
answer that God has for the problem is that he would come in the flesh to
fulfill the Law perfectly, to suffer and to die in order to overcome sin and
death, and therefore, the Law itself. He destroyed the power of the Law itself,
by fulfilling it to its highest possibility of love – to give up one’s life for
one’s friends.
By
fulfilling the Law in human flesh, he was able to make an infinite sacrifice,
which became an unending source of grace for those who would freely accept the
sacrifice through faith. He was able to atone for our lack. He was able to free
us from condemnation, by forgiving our sins. Much more, though, he was able to
make us new creations. By his fulfillment of the law and death on the Cross, we
were made able to be regenerated by grace and in grace. He made it possible for
us to be returned to our life in grace, similar to our original state. Ultimately,
this comes about by the pouring out of his Spirit into our hearts, whereby we
are literally brought back into union with God, with Love, and given life.
At
this point, I probably sound like a Protestant, except that I did not mention
the word “impute” … which is a nasty word. (I say that with a smile). It is at
this point where that will come to an end. This is where the Catholic
understanding of sin and grace becomes radically different than the Protestant
understanding. For a Catholic, it is understood that one can be baptized and
regenerated, but still later become a slave to sin. For a Catholic, it is
understood that being in a state of grace, like Adam and Eve obviously were,
does not guarantee falling from grace through sin, back into death. The
Catholic believes that grace is something like the Parable of Talents speaks
about, and must be used or will be lost or taken away (Matthew 25:14-30).
That
is where the understanding of “faith working through love,” “faith and works”
and “there is a sin leading to death” come into play, but I will write in the
next article about spiritual re-birth and significance of grace in the soul of
the believer to give the actual ability to fulfill the law, above and beyond
natural capabilities (supernaturally).
For if you live according to the
flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the
body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are
children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to
fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry,
“Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our
spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God
and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also
be glorified with him (Romans 8:13-17).
Ave
Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum.
benedicta
tu in mulieribus,
et
benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.
Sancta
Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus,
nunc
et in hora mortis nostrae.
Amen.
+
