His Excellency Michael Sheridan, Bishop of Colorado Springs, CO

Monsignor Ricardo Coronado

It is a pleasure to introduce students to Monsignor Ricardo Coronado-Arrascue and in particular to his excellent article below on the relationship of human nature to God, otherwise known as Christian anthropology.  In this article the Monsignor traces the history of the Catholic doctrine of the relationship between free will and grace, and the various extreme positions on either side of that doctrine. Few students – few Catholics – understand the Catholic position well. Yet misunderstanding it profoundly affects one’s behavior and happiness.

Students will be familiar with the notion of the golden mean, which is the desirable middle between two extreme positions, one of excess, one of defect, which Aristotle used to highlight the virtue in the middle of two vices. For example, courage is a virtue balanced between the vices of foolhardiness (excess) and cowardice (defect).  In Chinese thought a similar concept, the doctrine of the mean, was propounded by Confucius – a position of precise balance between good and evil. The Romans had a similar concept: Auream quisquis mediocritatem diligit, tutus caret obsoleti sordibus tecti, caret invidenda, sobrius aula. (He who chooses the golden mean safely avoids both the hovel and the palace). – Horace (Odes II – 10) 

In the article following, Monsignor Ricardo utilizes the foregoing notion of the golden mean  – the balanced, harmonious position between extreme views – to delineate  the Catholic teaching and distinguish it from errors on both sides.  Modern unbelief has actually succeeded in combining both extreme positions regarding free will and grace – thereby combining the worse of both worlds as it were. This is set forth in the article. 

– Patrick S.J. Carmack

 Anthropological Realism

 by Monsignor Ricardo Coronado-Arrascue

 There are some extreme doctrines that have an erroneous approach to anthropology. In other words, there are historically rooted misconceptions about human nature and therefore, it is difficult to respond properly to the grace of God when we are confused about who we really are. The controversies over these topics are summarized in the theology of grace, traditionally called: “Deo Elevante”.  There are three different main approaches against the Catholic teachings about the relationship between liberty and grace. Here they are: 

1. “We are free, we do not need grace” (Pelagianism)
2. “We are not free, all is grace” (Lutheranism)
3. “Neither we are free, nor we need grace” (modern unbelief)
4. “We are free, we need grace” (Catholic teaching)  

I.  We are free; we do not need grace (Pelagianism)

The pre-Christian World had no notion of liberty. The sophists spoke of liberty (eleutheria) in a civic-political sense. The great stoics—Zenon, Seneca, Mark Aurelious, etc.—spoke of liberty but at the same time they were fatalists, determinists, and materialists. They strove to solve the conflict by trying to join liberty and necessity. According to them the wise man meets his freedom by making it to coincide with necessity. The early Church having Revelation as a starting point, with few cultural supports, was able to make an enormous affirmation of human liberty. From this affirmation of human freedom western civilization was born. It has proven to be the most powerful one in transforming societies. Nevertheless, soon after the peace of Constantine, two different concepts of men were developed. While St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, etc, were still preaching ascetics, and other means of perfection, a contrary tendency developed rapidly. Pelagius, a corpulent, ascetic, and enthusiastic British Monk, began to preach an extremely optimistic anthropology. His preaching spread successfully in Rome, North Africa, and Palestine—his doctrine was approved by the bishop of Jerusalem, the bishop of Caesarea, and even, to a certain degree by Pope Zosimus until he later condemned this doctrine. 

Here, is the heart of his teaching: “When I have to exhort to reformation of customs and holiness of life I begin by demonstrating the strength of human nature, emphasizing its ability to excite my audience to all sorts of virtues; because we can initiate our way to a virtue if we do not have the hope that we will be able to practice it. The human strength is the beginning of the way of ascension towards perfection.” His idea was that with grace the practice of virtues was made easier, but it was not necessary. 

This erroneous teaching was adopted by several groups of monks in ancient monasticism. One of the consequences, especially for those who lacked good theological formation, was that they confused the end with the means. They sought fasting as an end itself. They fasted and sought every kind of penance furiously. They measured their spiritual development according to the amount of penance they were able to achieve. They thought they could manipulate God by their penitent life, and forgot about how important spiritual passivity was in allowing God to act. 

Clement of Alexandria introduced the new expression synergía to describe the interaction between liberty and grace. St. Gregory of Nisa (De instituto Christiano) went further. He said, “The Synergia unites God and man in the same direction where the divine grace cooperates with man’s moral effort”. This spiritual deviation is called voluntarism. Although voluntarism is not a heresy itself, because it does relate with the action of grace, it has, in a practical way, many similarities with Pelagianism. Voluntarism is more of a spiritual illness, than heresy.  Here are some elements of voluntarism: 

1. It considers that man is the source of all spiritual initiatives, not God. God will give us his grace because WE chose a good task to perform.
2. The Christian perfection is achieved in conjunction with the divine grace, but the indicative depends on how generous the individual is.
3. The personal project of sanctification belongs to humans, not to God. (The truth, of course is that we are to fit our spiritual life with God’s will, not vice-versa)
4. For voluntarisms, the means becomes absolute, and when the means are not successful, the lack of generosity is to blame.
5. There is a lack of trust about others’ virtue unless they follow the same patterns that voluntarism prescribes.
6. It overvalues some concrete works. Voluntarism considers works and sanctification as cause and effect.
7. Voluntarism is often legalistic.
8. It can produce a great deal of pride, or at least spiritual vanity.
9. Voluntarism has the false conviction that if something is harder then it is more sanctifying.

10.  Psychologically voluntarism is unhealthy. True love for God makes the soul open and gives itself totally to God; the voluntarism closes the person into itself.

11.  Whoever follows voluntarism lives between two extremes; on one hand it is leaned toward tiredness and pride if he fulfills his desires, on the other hand it is leaned toward frustration and disappointment is he fails.

12.   Voluntarism pictures God as the One always expecting more, requiring more, and seldom giving, and never allowing any rest. St. Teresa of Jesus: Always speaks of God giving me more prayer, calling me, giving me the grace to be…or to do, etc.

13.  Voluntarism despises people with weak psychological shapes, shy, or timid persons. It forgets what Jesus tells us: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest” 

II. We are not free; all is grace (Lutheranism) 

As I mentioned, the ancient world had known the voluntary act, (autarkeia) I am enough to myself of epicureans (balanced mixed of sufferings and pleasure); had admired the (apatheia) of stoicism (Pathetic=subject to passions, apathic= detached from passions), all of these doctrines intended to gain the most pure freedom. However, for them, freedom is subject to the dark destiny marked by the sordid decisions of their gods. They did not understand personal freedom as a characteristic of human beings. Liberty, with all its potential was a Christian discovery: Christ’s grace gives humans the ability to be free. For centuries there was no serious doubt about man’s freedom. 

It is true that basically we all have the experience that we are free: “We can, we are able”, but when we act wrong, our conscience is remorseful, because it knows that it is free. Nevertheless, we also have the immediate experience that our freedom is chained; we are unable.  Remember what St. Paul says: For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate (Rom 7, 15). This last sentence leads Luther to deny the freedom he once embraced so enthusiastically.  The oppressive consciousness of his guilt, led him to experience a deep anxiety with no limits, morbid and intolerable. He experienced terrible anger that led him to fulfill his monastic duties to perfection: he considered God just and a punisher, and held a secret resentment to the point of blasphemy” (M. Luther, Weimarer Ausgabe, Weimar, 1883…) He could not live in peace with God. Neither prayer nor repetitive confessions would ever help him. He imagined seeing the leprosy of sin in his skin, and the name of Jesus was for him, not good news, and the gospel (WA 44, 716; 775). 

Of course no one can live immersed in that situation, it was necessary for him to find a way out. But his solution is the biggest misunderstanding of human freedom and the Christian vision of man. Here is his exclamation: The human nature is intrinsically corrupted by sin. Man is a sinner even when he intends to act well, seeking goodness. Not even God is able to rescue man from his corruption. Redemption means only no imputation of sin that man commits any way. He has no option but to commit sin. He believed in man’s freedom only up to 1516. In 1525 he published “Servo arbitrio”, and goes as far as to say if man is free Jesus Christ’s redemption is useless. His conclusion is well known to us: Not justification by work, only by faith. Sola fides. Fides fiducialis. By means of this justification man is at the same time just and sinner (simul peccator et iustus): Works should be dismissed from the Christian life. They are not necessary, even dangerous. 

Denial of freedom and total redemption of sins is a permanent temptation and a constant heresy. We can even have those types of persons in our own churches. They even go to confession having the conviction that sin is unavoidable, and at the same time they are convinced that God will forgive their sins any way. Moreover, the internal conviction that they will continue to sin is rooted in their spiritual behavior. Their motto seems to be: “I will continue to sin and Christ will continue to forgive.” 

We can find a strange combination of Pelagian-Lutheranism, or a Lutheran-Pelagianism. On the one hand, we have an extreme public optimism toward the modern world, the modern concept of man, or political systems, etc; and on the other hand, a deep denial in front of personal possibilities, especially a tremendous denial of personal sanctification. 

As a consequence we have another spiritual illness that is called “Quietism.” 

There were several groups that observed this kind of deviation. They do not deny liberty; they promote persons not to act on it. There are certain traces of this vice in the old Maniqueism, Gnosticism, Cathars, Fraticelli, the Spanish illuminated of the XVI century, whose main author was Miguel de Molinos (+1696).  The Church several times between 1687 and 1699 condemned this doctrine (DZ. 2201-2268, 2351-2373) 

The main characteristics of this spiritual deviation are: 

1. Total passivity. To be active is offensive to God (Dz. 2202)
2. Any activity is an enemy of God’s grace, it impedes true perfection, because God wants to operate in us without us (Dz. 2204)
3. By being inactive the soul recovers its essence going back to God, being transformed and divinized (Dz. 2205)
4. Any voluntary penance must de rejected (Dz. 2238) 

It prescribes: 

1. Prayer of quietness, not active devotions. It totally rejects any kind of images, notions, concepts, etc, whoever has these kind of notions does not adore God who is pure spirit (Dz. 2218)
2. Prayer must remain in a state of darkness and universal. It is to avoid any kind of distinctions or formulas in regards to God. Avoid any actions because God dislikes them (Dz. 2221)
3. Personal annihilation: It is necessary for man to destroy all his powers (Dz. 2365)
4. All that we experience in the spiritual life is impure and abominable (Dz. 2230)
5. Rejection of all devotions to the Humanity of Christ, the Blessed Mother, and the Saints (Dz.
6. Total indifference. Our soul should be static, no concern for heaven or hell, it is to remain like a corps with no moves (Dz. 2261)
7. Perfection is reached when the soul does not struggle against any temptation, but remains without move, without committing sins, nor performing virtuous acts. (Dz. 2237) 

Quietism is not necessarily a consequence of Lutheranism; however both coincide in the denial of freedom. Quietism is more a derivation of Pietism and Puritanism. 

Nevertheless, today we have some sort.

III. Neither are we free, nor do we need grace

(Modern Unbelief) 

The fortress of the Christian liberty starts to break with the Lutheran attacks, but by the following centuries it would be more severely attacked by philosophical and scientific doctrines.  Today outside of Catholic theology it is difficult to find any doctrine which defends man’s freedom.  The atheistic modern culture does not believe in God, therefore, grace is an unknown reality.  And neither does it believe in human freedom.  It is difficult to believe in man as a free person if we cannot relate to a personal God, whose image man reflects.  

Without belief in the strength of God’s grace and without the conviction of human freedom it is not possible for any Christian spirituality, good or bad.  Let us consider some dramatic consequences in the mistrust in human freedom.  This crisis about human freedom comes from different political, philosophical, social, and literary angles.  All mass media, even though they speak much about freedom, they project a man who is not free.  No one relates to man as a sinner, but as a sick being, or an oppressed person subject to somatic, psychical, educational, social, economic, and cultural influences.  They portray man as a product of the environment.  The old conception of man being a sinner was based on the anthropological vision that man was a free person able to freely choose.  In the modern mentality man is portrayed as conditioned and determined by many influences that explain his way of thinking and behavior.  Therefore, he is not responsible.  He does not need conversion, nor is he capable of it.  Man is not worthy of reward and punishments.  All of these concepts: responsibility, conversion, merit, guilt, reward, and punishment have their support in the reality of liberty, and all of them are wiped away when the reality of liberty is only portrayed as an illusion.  On the other hand, the salvation of man is sought in imminent forces produced by the same human nature.  It would be man who would bring salvation to humanity.  We have witnessed several messianic political projects in the 20^th Century.  Many have hoped that scientists, physicians, economists, and workers will bring better standards and happiness to this world. 

From the previous premises, it can be deducted that the effort for salvation doesn’t come from the individual man but it comes from social structures.  It seems that what the individual man doesn’t have, the combination of the individuals will bring something about which each of them does not have.  In this environment it seems to be the motto that men will be the salvation of man.  And every action of God in man is to be rejected.  So man who is not free by himself is able to bring about salvation if he associates with others to change social structures.  For them it is enough that individuals be able to know better the laws that govern the modern society, the psychological shape of the people, the fluctuation of the market, and entrepreneurial success in order to achieve salvation. 

Jesus Christ, the Church, priests, sacraments, and prayer are not necessary for this kind of salvation.  They only have value when they can awaken the immanent forces of man, but even that is deeply doubtful. 

Ascetics are not necessary for obvious reasons.  Man doesn’t believe in his own liberty, or in the transforming strength of grace.  He suffers his own sins but he is not responsible for them.  So he doesn’t seek conversion as necessary, nor does he believe that grace can be of any help.  He has a pessimistic approach to himself, and he plans to continue to sin because the social structures are responsible for his own actions.  Basically, he doesn’t consider conversation possible or necessary.  Apostolic action is directed only to change the vital structures that involve man and his condition, but it doesn’t have any transcendental object. 

Temporal vocations are to be promoted: physicians, economists, technicians, scientists; they will bring true salvation to the world.  Vocations that have transcendental meaning for the kingdom of God: priests, religious, missionaries, etc, are to be disregarded.  The penal law, because the society does not believe in the human liberty, is only to assure social peace in the name of justice.  Any vindication or medicinal aspect of juridical punishment is to be rejected.  Listen to what Feodor Dostoevsky has to say in 1879, in his work the Brothers Karamazov, “The foreign criminal rarely repents because the contemporary intellectuals have convinced him that a crime is not a crime.  It is only a protest against social forces that unjustly oppress him.  The society separates him from it in a totally mechanical way, overcoming him by violence (I, 2.II chapter 5).”  This kind of affirmation excludes the interaction of liberty and responsibility.  Penalty has no relation with moral expiation.  Juridical systems are designed to fulfill the desires of the majority, and not to shape up societies and their customs.  We assist in the triumph of the most sordid juridical positivism. 

Definitive and lasting decisions are not possible.  Any lasting consequences based on acts of personal freedom are considered unthinkable.  Indissoluble marriages, perpetual religious vows, and ministerial priesthood are to be considered not only difficult tasks but inhumane ones.  Heaven and hell, as the result of human behaviors, the everlasting and eternal are inconceivable.  That is why often people who are afraid to deny these realities simply avoid them from their preaching. 

IV. We Are Free, We Need Grace 

Liberty can be proved by reason itself.  Man has free will because he is rational.  “Will is the root of liberty, while reason is its cause. (Summa Theologica I-II, 17, 1 art, 2 m)” Will is a rational power whose object is goodness in general, goodness in universal form.  Therefore, the object of election cannot be but limited and partial goods, never the absolute, total, and universal good.  Because the will is not determined by any necessary options, therefore, the will is free.  Freedom is an ontological determination of the will, and it is not any psychological illusion.  The psychological conscience is an immediate experience because we know that we are not mere spectators of any conflict of motivations.  But we know that we are involved in distinguishing and choosing among possibilities.  In every decision we know that we own our acts.  In every execution we know that we can rectify, change, prolong, and nullify a good amount of acts.  Liberty is the experiential fact that most certainly exists. 

It is not possible to object that liberty is only an illusion because the only possible determination is when we ignore or are unaware of the causes that produce certain acts.  One has more liberty when he is better aware of the causes that lead him to certain acts.  

The Church from the gospel ought to be the principle defender of the human natural values especially those that are more threatened.  In the time of Rationalism, the Church pointed out the limits of rational knowledge, and in the times of skepticism and agnosticism the Church has affirmed the power of reason to achieve objective knowledge.  The same is to be done with the problem about freedom.  When there is success like Pelagianism or Voluntarism the Church is to remind, along with Christ, that people are weak, and they don’t know what they do (Lk 23:34).  And when the trust in a deficient liberty makes people and customs weak and damaged and permissive the Church ought to tell that God has made us free, that we are responsible, that we need to convert from our sins and perform good works.

The Church affirms the liberty of man with foundations not only in the light of natural reason but also in revelation.  It is very frequent to find in the scripture how God made humans free, responsible, and capable of merit and punishment.  And God has given his law so man can fulfill it, avoid evil, and achieved goodness.  Listen to what the prophet Isaiah has to say “If man is not free, why does God exhort him to fulfill His law?  Why does he correct him, why does he encourage him, why does he threaten him? (Is 5:4-5, Ps 7: 12-13).”  To these biblical questions, Martin Luther was only able to say that God had imposed his law to man so he may acknowledge his impotence, so man may acknowledge his misery, and turn to Christ with fiducial faith, and not with works, to be able to be saved.  However, we believe that the reason that God constrains us to fulfill his law, is not only to disappoint ourselves and our human nature.  The law is our helper for us to go to Christ (Gal 3:24).  And to those who live in the time of the Church, God gives us not only his law but also his spirit so we can fulfill them (I Cor 6: 9-10).  The good works are necessary for salvation, how can Christ require good works if we were not free?  He said, “Those who have done good, will be raised to the resurrection of life, and those who have worked evil, to the resurrection of condemnation (Jn 5:29).”  See also Mt 7:21; Mt 25:19-46; Rom 2:13; Rom 14:10-12; 2 Cor 5:10; James 2:17-24; Rev 22:12.  It is true also that liberty admits several degrees of perfection.  Non believers are free, and even though they do not have the light of faith in their consciences, they have the light of reason, and they are obliged to do good and avoid evil (Rom 2:14-16; LG 16).  Sinners, even though they are free they are subjects to slavery of the law, of sin, and of the evil one (Jn 8:44; Rom 6:11 Gal 4:21-31; 2Pet 2:19).  The just are free, but it is not absolute freedom.  They are called to the glorious liberty of the children of God (Rom 8:21), in which they are to grow daily until their freedom becomes perfect in the resurrection Jn 8:36 Gal 5:1-13).  It is clear that man is free to a certain degree, as it is clear that he is also rational and he is of the image of God.  This liberty is often obscured but not eliminated by sin, and it is to be cultivated by grace and it will be perfected in glory.

Saint Augustine said that we are not to make opposition between grace and liberty because the will be freer when it is more subject to the mercy and grace of God, and man is most free only when God dominates him (Rom 6:22). 

We Need Grace

God teaches the Jews that man is a sinner and evil.  He is a creature that even being free is infected with evil to his bones.  As a consequence without the help of grace it is impossible for man to overcome his sins, under this condition our subject not only the gentiles but the chosen people alike Gen 6:5; 8:21).  This is so true that even to form his chosen people God requires Abraham to abandon his familial place, he requires Israel to abandon Egypt, and after years of purification in the desert God will tell Israel “You are unfaithful, your name is rebellion since you were born (Is 48:8).”  It is clear that the Israelites, at least the righteous ones, have a consciousness of their sins when they invoked God “Even though our evils claim against us, hear Oh Yahweh hear us for the sake of the glory of your name (Jer 14:7-9).”  “We have sinned only against you (Ps 51).” 

Jesus Christ, alike, sees men as evil people, absolutely in need of his grace.  He openly says to man “You are evil (Mt 12:24; Lk 11:13)”  He came to save sinners (Mt 9:13)  Because the Father who sent him is kind with the ungrateful and evil Lk 6:35)  And he repeats to us “Without me you can do nothing (Jn 15:5)” and that we are under the influence of the devil (Jn 8:44) and therefore we are to elect between docility to his grace or death (Lk 13:3-5).  The same is the Apostles’ teaching “We were all dead because of our delicts and sins, we were all enemies of God and we were unable to do good Rom 3:23 Eph 2:1-3; Titus 3:3) if we dare to say anything different we will be liars and call God a liar (1Jn 1:8-10).  But God is rich in mercy, and because of his great love for us, even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life by Christ, and by his grace we have been saved (Eph 2:4-5).  Now we are free because Christ has freed us Jn8:36.  But we are not to trust ourselves.  Damned the man who trusts man (Jer 17:5).  Even today we have people who think that men are basically good and not sinners.  People who think that men are of goodwill, this is not what the gospel tells us.  We absolutely need the light of Christ to illuminate our dark inner being to be capable of works of light.  The gospel is not a path that man can walk by his own forces.  The gospel is unintelligible without the internal light of grace from God (Act 13:48; 16:14; 17:32 I Cor 2:14).  To fulfill the gospel is also impossible for man unless we rely on the power of God Mt 19:26.  The fathers of the Church and the Christian Tradition have told us of the absolute need for the grace of Christ for the salvation of man.  Saint Augustine said: “If the mercy of God is not ahead, calling us, nobody can have faith, which is the base and principle of all justification and acquire the ability to perform good.  Therefore, grace precedes all merits.  (PL 40:115).”  “God is the one who awakens us to faith, raises us to hope, and unites us in the bond of charity.  God is for whom we win over the enemy.  God exalts us to vigilance, God converts us, strips us from vice and dresses us up with the true being.  He leads us to truth.  He returns us to the way.  He leads us to the door, and he maintains it open for those who he calls. (PL 32:870-871).”  And he also said, in his prayer, “Lord all my hope rests in your immense mercy.  Give me what you command, and command what you want. (Confessions X:29:40)  The Magisterium of the Church has insisted on the same truths.  The council of Trent says that grace not only facilitates but gives us the possibility of being good because without the Lord we can do nothing (DZ 1551).  With only the forces of human nature it is impossible to be raised from the misery of sin.  (DZ 1521).   The sacred liturgy tells us the same thing in a more vivid, and prayerful way.  Listen to what we say on the first Thursday of Lent, “Father, without you we can do nothing.  By Your Spirit help us to know what is right, and to be eager in doing Your will.”  And also, Thursday after Lent, “Lord, may everything we do begin with your inspiration, continue with your help, and reach perfection under your guidance.”  In a negative way we repeat the same meaning in the ordinary of mass, “Deliver us Lord from every evil…in your mercy keep us free from sin, protect us from all anxiety, etc.” 

Synergy: the interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects. 

In summary here is the Catholic teaching: 

1) God has always the initiative in our spiritual life.  God inhabits within us as ontological and dynamic principle of our supernatural life.  If God wants us to do certain amount of good we are not to make 101%, but just 100%, but neither do 99%.  This is the perfect synergia between grace and freedom.  Here is where the spiritual perfection and peace of soul rests.  While God wants us to perform each day, this is our daily task, no more, no less.  Man is not to take anything unless it has been given from heaven Jn 3:27.  Frequently, the carnal Christian is attached to his own project of spiritual life composed by several or a great amount of good works.  If he believes that prayer is good, he wants to have five hours of prayer everyday.  While another carnal Christian convinced that works of mercy are the most important ones he doesn’t spend even some minutes in daily prayer.  The Christian who is attached to his own spiritual conceptions, concrete plans, and projects of life is not docile to the grace of God.  Frequently he will experience tiredness, frustration, and lack of peace.  Frequently he would prefer quantity over quality.  To these kind of Christians, Saint John of the Cross warns, “What profit is it to give God one thing if he is asking you for something else?  Consider what God would want from you, do it and you will find more satisfaction in your heart than from what you have more inclinations to.”  “Don’t think that to please God consists in doing much, but to work without attachments.”  

2) God expresses clearly his will if man sincerely wants to know and fulfill it.  God never hides from man.  It is man who hides from God Gen 3:8; 4:14).  So that the divine light doesn’t show his evil works Jn 3:20).  We are not to have any hesitations.  God loves man.  It is not worthy of God for us to think that on the one hand God may want something from us, and at the same time he would hide it from us.  That is why in consideration of the elections we have to make in life, small or big, the solution is not much about the pros and cons if we maintain our attachments.  It is more important to detach ourselves from our carnal inclinations and search for the will of God.  Because again John of the Cross says, “The way of life is of little noise and no negotiation, it requires more mortification of the will than too much information.”  

3) The spiritual attention is not to center in the production of good works, but in the intentional fidelity to the grace of God.  It should be indifferent to us whether God is calling us to great or little things, brilliant or obscure ones, heroic or ordinary ones, many or few; what is important is to concentrate into performing the will of God whatever that might be.  We need to understand that we are not a factory of good works, and the one who truly operates perfection in man is not the works themselves, but the action of God and the cooperation of man.  The good works are not ends in themselves.  They are only means in which the action of freedom and grace perfect personal lives and social structures.  The synergetic spiritual movement is always from the interior to the exterior.  However, when the concrete exterior works become the only motivation then the spiritual life becomes anxious, scrupulous and can lead to hypocrisy and pride.  The spiritual direction, more than proscribing works, is to model the interior life of the person, shaping it with motivations of faith and charity.  Spiritual direction in this case is not a supervision of works, it is the art of helping the soul to detach from preferences and making it docile to the inspirations of God and its Spirit that blows where it wants (Jn 3:8).  God will never subordinate any of his children to the operation of certain works, but He will expect from us the obedience of faith.  It is to remember what Saint Ignatius of Loyola advises in his spiritual exercises that usually beginners want to multiply works instead of seeking with indifference of health or sickness, riches or poverty, honor or dishonor, only the will of God.  4) The will of God is not for the soul to be disturbed or suffer from works (Dichos 56).  We are to remember that the grace of God moves always the will; sometimes it illuminates the understanding; but not often does it stimulate the sentiments.  Therefore, when the will is moved to do certain good actions, then the Christian person should certainly do it even if it not very clear to his understanding and even if it is repulsive to his tastes.  But if God does not move the will to do certain good works, even if it is attractive or repugnant, and the conscience senses an internal perturbation, there is no proportion between our strength of grace and the weight of the world, and we obstinate in doing it, then we would need to take other natural forces that are not very holy, self-esteem, pride, prestige.  We are going to tire of that work and it won’t be fruitful, it will cause internal lack of peace and the spiritual result of this work won’t be beneficial to anyone, and least to the glory of God.  In this case the Christian person is to understand that if his will is not empowered by grace to a certain good work, and therefore, he struggles with them, then he is to give up that specific good work.  What would be the interest of a Christian to do a certain work if God does not want him to do it?  If we do that anyway, even if it is a good work, it will be an imperfect action in His sight, and it can be a sign of a personal pride trying to oblige God to give us His grace even though He doesn’t deem it. 

The Christian person is to do only those works that the will of God grants him to do, and it can be either way with warm and happy feelings or with repulsion, terrible pains, protests, it is the same.  He should do it anyway if God is granting him to.  We need to remember that the grace of God always moves the will first.  So does it mean that we are to reject all non obligatory works that have some pain in it?  Absolutely not.  We said that every cross needs to be taken when the interior grace is moving our will to do it.  If we need to die on the cross, it needs to be the will of God to lead us to it, not our pride nor our vanity.

Finally, the freedom of man is created freedom.  Therefore, its exercise is subject to many conditions, and in addition it is an attenuated one because man is born a sinner and continues to be.  Therefore, man cannot do always what he wishes.  The one who seeks to do his own will is always perceiving his impotence, however, man is always free to do what the grace of God is giving him to do.  Whatever his personal dispositions or the external circumstances may be, when man is seeking the will of God he is participating in his omnipotence.  When we act with synergia then we participate in the omnipotence of the Lord, then peace, the infinite liberty of God is ours.  Then God says to the soul, “My grace is enough (2 Cor 12:9) and the soul can confess, by the grace of God I am what I am (1 Cor 15:10).

 Monsignor Ricardo, J.C.D., is the Chancellor and Judicial Vicar of the Diocese of Colorado Springs, U.S.A.