Dist. 27, Art. 1, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/2/d/27/q/bon-sent-II-d27-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether grace that makes pleasing and gratuitous virtue differ by essence.*

Secondly there is asked about the comparison of grace to gratuitous virtue, and the question is whether grace that makes pleasing and gratuitous virtue differ by essence.

And that they do not, it seems:

1. *First*, from that which the Master says, and which was set down in the preceding lesson, namely that grace that makes pleasing is «faith with love»: if therefore faith and love are virtues, it seems so, etc.

2. Likewise, «those whose definitions are the same are themselves the same»; but grace is thus defined by Isidore: «Grace is the gift of divine mercy, through which there is an issuing-forth of good will»; but this definition fits gratuitous virtue: therefore, etc.

3. Likewise, operating grace and cooperating grace are by essence the same; but cooperating grace in free choice is nothing other than gratuitous virtue, since it belongs to it to cooperate with the will: therefore virtue and grace are the same.

4. Likewise, *those whose effect and proximate and immediate act is the same are themselves the same*; but the act of grace with respect to its subject is to vivify the soul, with respect to God is to render it accepted, with respect to the work is to make the work itself meritorious. All these belong to virtue; for it is said in Romans chapter one: *The just man lives by faith;* and in Hebrews chapter eleven: *Without faith it is impossible to please God;* and in First Corinthians chapter thirteen: *If I have not love, it profits me nothing.* Therefore if the first effects of grace are attributed to virtue, grace and virtue are one and the same habit.

5. Likewise, if habits are diverse, one does not denominate the other; but grace denominates virtue, for it is called *gratuitous virtue:* therefore grace and virtue do not differ in essence.

6. Likewise, with every other habit set aside, if anyone has faith and love, he has that whereby he may please God and also whereby he may serve Him: if therefore that which makes one please God is grace that makes pleasing; then with every habit set aside, granted that one has faith and love, he has grace that makes pleasing: therefore grace that makes pleasing is not something differing by essence from virtue.

**On the contrary:**
1. Anselm *On the Concord of Predestination and Free Choice*: «No one has rectitude of the will except by God's grace going before»; but virtue is nothing other than rectitude of the will: therefore virtue is from prevenient grace. But in creatures the effect differs from the cause by essence: therefore gratuitous virtue differs essentially from grace.

2. Likewise, whatever things are so related that one is the medium of operating with respect to the other, those differ by essence, because nothing created acts by itself; but grace moves into a good work and into a determinate act by means of virtue: therefore grace and gratuitous virtue differ by essence.

3. Likewise, whatever things are so related that one of them has a continuous act, and the other has an interrupted act, those differ by essence; but grace and virtue are of this kind, because grace is in a continuous act — for it continuously vivifies and renders the soul accepted to God — whereas virtue is not continuously in its act: therefore, etc.

4. Likewise, whatever things are so related that they have diverse dividing differences, those differ by essence; but grace is divided into prevenient and subsequent, whereas virtue is divided into cardinal and theological: therefore, etc.

5. Likewise, whatever things are so related that one remains while the other withdraws, those are diverse by essence; but virtue in some way remains after the perpetration of a fault, whereas grace that makes pleasing in no way remains: therefore, etc.

6. Likewise, whatever things are so related that one remains undivided, while the other is divided and multiplied, those differ essentially; but grace in one soul is one, as was shown above, whereas the virtues are many, as will be shown below, and the Apostle says in First Corinthians chapter thirteen: *But now there remain faith, hope, and love, these three* etc.: it is necessary therefore that grace and the gratuitous virtues differ by essence.

### Conclusion

> Grace that makes pleasing is diverse from the habits of the virtues, which are made gratuitous by the one grace.

**I respond:** For the understanding of what has been said, it must be noted that on this matter different men have thought in different ways.

For some wished to say that grace is nothing other than virtue. For they understood that grace is nothing other than a certain rectification of the soul's powers with respect to that for which they exist. But this rectification, since it is above nature, none but God can effect. And since, by making such rectitude in the soul, He gives virtues to the powers themselves — to the rational power faith, to the concupiscible love, and to the irascible hope — therefore they said that created grace is nothing other than gratuitous virtue, but that it differs only by the manner of speaking, because it is called grace insofar as God through that rectitude accepts and approves the soul, whereas it is called virtue insofar as the soul, thus rectified, has to go forth into arduous and praiseworthy works.

But others said that grace and gratuitous virtue differ essentially as principle and that which proceeds from a principle, and as substance and power. For just as the power of the soul is not the soul's essence itself, but rather emanates and proceeds from it; so virtue, which perfects the power, is not grace itself, which perfects the soul's substance, but rather something issuing forth from it, so that, just as the soul is a certain potential whole, so also grace is a certain potential whole. For it is one in itself, and insofar as it regards the soul's substance itself; yet it is the origin of many, insofar as it flows into the powers themselves. Hence they say that those virtues differ not only insofar as they are virtues, but also insofar as they are gratuitous, so that there is one special grace from which faith is called gratuitous, another from which hope, another from which love is named gratuitous.

But each of these positions, although it has probability, nonetheless, if one looks within, one will see that each in some way deviates from the path of truth. — For the first, which says that grace is nothing other than the habit of virtue, must say either that all the virtues are one virtue, or that in one man there are many graces that make pleasing. Both of which are improbable, and the one has been disproved above, and the other is sufficiently improbable, namely that all the virtues are one virtue, and it will be disproved in its place. It must also say either that grace that makes pleasing is not wholly taken away by fault, or that after sin nothing of any virtue remains. And the first of these is against the common opinion of the doctors, the second against sensible experience. Therefore this manner of speaking has no small objection against it. — The other also seems to deviate from the truth. First in that it posits that grace first exists in the substance and afterwards flows into the powers: for this has been disproved above. Secondly in that it posits that in one and the same man there are diverse graces that make pleasing; and this very thing has been disproved above. For there is one comeliness which is given to the face of the soul, by which not only the soul itself is accepted, but even its habits and works.

And therefore there is a third manner of speaking, namely that just as, when I say *light* and *illuminated color,* I say one form and another, although the one is ordered to the other, and in a way the one is completed by the presence of the other; so it must be understood concerning grace and gratuitous virtue. For just as «color is a quality of a bounded body», which by the presence of infused light is adorned and completed, so that it can move sight; so virtue, which is the rendering-apt of a power, is without grace that makes pleasing formless, like color without light; but when that grace comes, by which the whole soul is adorned in itself and in its powers, the habits of the virtues are said to be formed and vivified and made accepted to God. And just as from infused light and color there comes about not one thing by essence, but by order; and again, light, insofar as it illuminates the air joined to a bounded body, and insofar as it renders color luminous, is not one thing and another by essence, but differing only by comparison and according to being; and just as

one light can reduce diverse colors to act without its own multiplication: so it must be understood to be in the influence of grace and the habit of virtue, namely that grace supervening upon the habit of virtue, which it is said to *form,* does not make *one thing by essence,* but it forms it for this reason, that it *orders it to its end.* Similarly grace, from which the soul is said to be pleasing to God, and from which any virtue is said to be gratuitous, does not differ except *by comparison alone,* as the example was set down concerning light. Similarly there is one grace, from which all the virtues of the soul are said to be gratuitous. — It must be conceded therefore, as several reasons show, that the habit of grace that makes pleasing and the habits of the virtues are diverse.

**To the objections:**

1. To that, therefore, which is first objected concerning the Master, who says that grace is faith with love; it must be said that that predication is not by essence, but by a certain *concomitance* and *signification.* And in some way it could also be reduced to predication *by cause*.

2. To that which is objected, that the definition of grace fits virtue; it must be said that that notification either is not proper, or, if it is proper, does not fit virtue in the manner in which it is said of grace; for grace is like the first and most excellent gift among created gifts, and like a gift that embraces the whole goodness of the giver. But the notification thus understood does not belong to virtue.

3. 4. To that which is objected, that cooperating grace is virtue; it must be said that that act is not assigned to grace in itself, but according as it is directive of virtue; and so it is said to cooperate with free choice. Nor does it follow from this that it is the same as virtue; rather, if one argued thus, it would be the *consequent* [fallacy], just as if one argued thus: color moves sight, and light moves sight: therefore color does not differ from light. — And by this the reply to the following is clear, since to vivify and to render accepted and to make a work meritorious belong in one way to virtue, in another way to grace. For they belong to grace first, but to virtue consequently, namely because it is formed and ordered by the influence of grace.

5. To that which is objected, that if habits are diverse, one does not denominate the other; it must be said that there is a denomination by *inherence,* as whiteness denominates a body by the white; and a denomination by a certain *mutual indwelling,* in which two things are so related that one has to order the other, according as the will is called *deliberating* and justice *prudent*. And in this manner virtue is said to be *gratuitous.*

6. To that which is objected, that with every habit set aside, etc.; it must be said that grace cannot be set aside from love, because love always names a formed virtue. But if one were to call love the habit of the love by which man is born to love God for His own sake and above all things, then, even though now it cannot be found without grace, it can nevertheless be understood, as it was in Adam and in the first Angel before the fall, as was clear above in the third distinction. — And thus it is clear that grace is other than virtue; it is clear also that it is other than the rectification of the powers. For in man, as regards the state of innocence, there was a rectitude of the powers before there was the infusion of grace that makes pleasing; and this will be seen better below, when there will be a treatment of the necessity of grace according to the state of innocence.