The seven sacraments are ordered to the holiness of the human person. The sacraments
confer grace—they make us holy. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that “grace is
a participation in the life of God” (no. 1997). Because grace is a participation in God’s own
divine life, God is the ultimate cause of grace. Only God can share his divine life with us.
The Catechism also teaches that the sacraments confer grace on the human
person (nos. 1127, 1983). How do we reconcile these two teachings of the Catholic Church?
In this video, we will talk about how God uses the sacraments to cause grace in the human person.
What does it mean for something to be a “cause”? Broadly stated, a cause makes
something to be or makes something to be in a certain way. There are different kinds of causes.
With regard to the sacraments, however, St. Thomas Aquinas focuses on what is known as
efficient causality. An efficient cause is a cause that “effects” something else.
In our present context, an efficient cause effects motion or change in something.
This is why efficient causality is relevant to grace. None of us was born in a state of grace.
When we received grace at our baptism, we were changed—transformed—through
divine causality. God intervened in us. God effected changes in us through our baptism.
Baptism changed who we are—making us partakers in the divine nature. Grace
is an effect of God’s wisdom and love. And God is the efficient cause of grace in our soul.
Aquinas distinguishes, however, between two kinds of efficient causality. There is (1) principal
efficient causality and there is (2) instrumental efficient causality. Both kinds of efficient
causality are very important for understanding how God and the sacraments cause grace.
Aquinas invokes the example of fire to illustrate the first type of efficient causality: principal
causality. A fire is a principal cause because the fire causes something to be hot by its own
form and power—by its own proper heat. A fire requires nothing outside of itself to impart heat.
Similarly, God causes divine grace by his own proper divinity. Only God can make someone
participate in the divine nature because God alone is the divine nature. Only God can cause grace.
In contrast, however, an instrumental cause does not cause in virtue of its own form and
power alone. An instrumental cause operates under the activity of a principal cause. For example,
imagine that an artist is carving a sculpture of a man out of a large block of marble.
In this scenario, the artist is the principal cause of the sculpture.
The artist, however, relies upon tools to produce his marble sculpture: a hammer and a chisel.
These tools serve as instrumental causes. They legitimately contribute to the formation of the
sculpture. The hammer and chisel, however, do not contribute to the finished sculpture of or
by themselves. The hammer and the chisel bear the power of chipping and shaping,
but they do not bear the power of making a sculpture of a man in and of themselves.
The artist—as the principal cause—is ultimately responsible for the finished sculpture of a man.
Nonetheless, he truly uses instruments (tools) to bring
about his desired effect (the finished sculpture).
And it is in this second, instrumental way that the sacraments are causes of grace. The sacraments
effect grace in our souls as instruments under the activity of God as principal
cause. The sacraments are the instruments that God utilizes to confer grace on the
human person. God is the principal cause of grace. The sacrament is an instrumental cause of grace.
Although the sacraments are instruments that operate under God’s primary causality,
this does not mean that sacraments contribute nothing proper to the conferral of grace. Indeed,
the sacraments are perfective instrumental causes of grace.
An instrumental cause is perfective if the instrument reaches or “touches” the effect
intended by the principal cause. In other words,
sacraments are truly perfective instrumental causes because they do actually contribute
to the attainment of God’s sacramental purpose: the communication of grace.
Consequently, God (as primary cause) and the sacraments (as instrumental causes)
both contribute to unified sacramental action. God and the sacraments do not effect separate
actions. Rather, they are distinct causes united in a single action and for the same effect.
Moreover, even the sign-quality of the sacraments is taken up into God’s principal causality. For
example, in the sacrament of baptism, the pouring of water causes the cleansing of the
heart. Of course, water in and of itself can only cause bodily cleansing, not spiritual cleansing.
But in the act of baptism, the water is not in and of itself—it is baptismal water:
an instrument operating in reference to God’s principal causality and purpose in the sacrament.
Because God’s principal causality is ordered to the cleansing of the heart, so the water’s
cleansing-significance is instrumentally ordered to the cleansing of the heart.
In conclusion, we return to our original question: Does God cause grace? Yes.
Do the sacraments cause grace? Yes. God and the sacraments are both efficient causes of grace.
They both effect grace in the person who receives the sacraments. God, however,
is the principal cause of grace; while the sacraments are instrumental causes of grace.
Moreover, there is no tension or competition between the causality
of God and the causality of the sacraments. God’s principal causality renders the seven
sacraments of the Church true instrumental causes of grace in the life of the Christian.
Through the sacraments, Jesus truly gives us his grace.
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