Article I: On Grace Making One Pleasing Caused by the Sacraments

St. Thomas III, q. 62, a. 1; on IV Sentences, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4; Disputed Question On Truth 27, a. 4.

30. Notions. - Opus operatum¹ is the work which is effected, and it is opposed to the opus operantis: this is the very subjective operation of man according as it is imputable to him and has dignity, value, merit from him; the former is not the meritorious operation itself but the objective work itself produced, abstracting from the personal value and merit of the one operating.

¹ This formula seems first to have been used by Peter of Poitiers (d. 1205), in Book of Sentences V, c. 6; it was employed by Innocent III, On the Mystery of the Holy Altar, book III, c. 5; by William of Auxerre, Summa aurea, on IV, d. 1, a. 2 and 3; by St. Albert the Great, on IV Sentences, d. 1, a. 5; it is also reported by St. Thomas, on IV Sentences, d. 1, q. 1, a. 5, qc. 1, and by St. Bonaventure, on IV, d. 1, a. 1, q. 5.

In the sacraments the opus operatum is the sensible sign itself; this external work objectively considered:

1. positively: according to the Council of Trent, confers grace;

2. negatively: that sign does not have power from the subjective disposition or merit, whether of the minister operating the placing of the sacrament, or of the man operating the reception, but from God;

3. whence the subjective operation, whether of the minister or of the recipient, by its own power is in no way the cause of that grace which is conferred through the objective external sign;

4. nevertheless it is its condition sine qua non; for without the work of the one ministering there would not be the external work worked, and without the disposition which is the work of the recipient, in him there would be an obstacle, on account of which the opus operatum could not confer grace.²

² "Baptism is established not by the merits of those by whom it is administered, nor of those to whom it is administered, but by its own sanctity and truth, on account of Him by whom it was instituted, to the destruction of those using it badly, to the salvation of those using it well," Augustine, Against Cresconius IV, 19.

31. Thesis. The sacraments of the New Law cause grace ex opere operato. - This is of faith from the definition of the Council of Trent, sess. 7, can. 6-8, against the Protestants.

The thesis is opposed:

1. to the Protestants, who teach that the sacraments are symbols ordained to exciting faith, and signs of divine promises, not conferring sanctification except through the faith of the recipient, as they generally say with Luther (cf. can. 5 and 8); or also that the Holy Spirit, on the occasion of the sacrament, excites faith in the predestined, not in others, as the Augsburg Confession has it (cf. can. 7); or that they are external signs of justice accepted through faith, or mere signs of Christian profession by which the faithful are distinguished from infidels, as is more pleasing to Zwingli, the Socinians, Unitarians, and Rationalists (cf. can. 6);

2. to the Modernists, whose following proposition was condemned (41): "The sacraments look only to this, that they recall into the mind of man the always beneficent presence of the Creator";

3. also to the Donatists, Waldenses, and Wycliffe, who contended that the sacraments do not operate ex opere operato but dependently on the virtue of the minister, and therefore that sacraments conferred by a depraved minister are invalid (cf. can. 8 and 12).

It is proved: 1. From the Scriptures, which teach:

a) that the effect of the sacraments is not so much faith as grace which sanctifies (Eph. V, 26; I Cor. VI, 11), spiritually cleanses (Eph. V, 26), washes away or remits sins (Acts II, 38; XXII, 16; I Cor. VI, 11; John XX, 22, 23; Jas. V, 14, 15), by which we are reborn and renewed spiritually (John III, 5; Tit. III, 5), which consists in the conferral of the Spirit of Christ and of salvation (Acts II, 38; VIII, 17; XIX, 6; Mk. XVI, 16; Gal. III, 27; I Pet. III, 21; Heb. X, 22); moreover all these things indicate habitual grace making one pleasing;

b) they teach that this effect is obtained by the power of the sensible sign itself, as through a cause: for when the sign has been placed, the effect is immediately had (Mk. XVI, 16; Acts VIII, 17; Gal. III, 27); it is obtained through an external sign: through the laver (Tit. III, 5); by the laver of water in the word of life (Eph. V, 26); by the imposition of hands (II Tim. I, 6); by eating the flesh of Christ (John VI, 55); the laver itself regenerates and renews (Tit. III, 5); indeed causality is attributed to water just as to the Holy Spirit Himself (John III, 5). Therefore the sensible sign itself is a true cause of grace.

2. From Tradition: according to the Fathers a) the Holy Spirit and the power or divine omnipotence flows into the elements, and thus a supernatural power is present in the symbols for sanctifying men;³ - b) they compare the sacraments to natural causes, and especially the water of Baptism regenerating with the maternal womb from which we are generated;⁴ - c) they explicitly state that the end and effect of the external sign is grace to be produced in the soul;⁵ and therefore they extol and wonder at the power of the symbol.⁶ Whence Symbols and Councils confess one Baptism unto the remission of sins (Council of Milevis, can. 2; Constantinople I; Orange II, can. 25; Florence, decree for the Armenians).

³ Tertullian, On Baptism 4; Cyril of Jerusalem, mystagogical catechesis 3, n. 3; Cyril of Alexandria, on John III, 5; Ephraem, Against Scrutators, sermon 40.

⁴ Cyprian, ep. to Donatus n. 4; Cyril of Jerusalem, mystagogical catechesis 2, n. 4; Chrysostom, on John, hom. 26, n. 1; Gregory of Nyssa, oration on the Baptism of Christ; Ephraem, Hymn on Virginity XXXVIII, 3; Leo, sermon 5 on the Nativity of the Lord, 5.

⁵ Epistle of Barnabas 11-12; Hermas, similitude IX, 36; Origen, on John VI, 17; Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh 8; On Baptism 5 and 7; Optatus of Milevis, On the Schism V, 1; Augustine, on John tr. 3, n. 5; on Psalm 83, 2.

⁶ Augustine, on John tr. 80, n. 3, and several alleged under a and b.

3. From the practice of the Church, which administers sacraments to children, to the insane, to those destitute of senses; uses in the sacraments the Latin, Greek, etc., tongue; commands the reception of the sacraments to all. But if the sacraments did not confer grace ex opere operato, but only excited faith, it would follow a) that Baptism conferred on infants would be of no efficacy; b) that sacraments conferred on him who did not understand the language would effect nothing; c) that the sacraments would confer grace as much on bystanders as on recipients, which nevertheless even the Protestants themselves deny. Therefore the practice of the Church is against the Protestants.

32. Corollary. - From what has been said it is easily understood that the words of the sacraments are not merely sermonic and promissory, as the Protestants say, but consecratory: for although, which we do not deny, 1) they can instruct the bystanders and excite them to faith, because they are real preachings of the divine word; likewise 2) they themselves contain divine promises or recall promises already made; nevertheless 3) and principally, they are immediately ordained to the blessing, consecration, or sanctification of the thing or person, and only secondarily and dependently on this principal end are they also sermonic and promissory (Council of Trent, sess. 7, can. 5 and 6). - Moreover they are consecratory in a threefold way: a) as to the matter, which they determine to sacramental signification (n. 12); b) as to the recipient, insofar as they are part of the sign sanctifying and consecrating him; c) as to their origin: for they were instituted by Christ and thus consecrated to producing supernatural effects.

Whence Hugh of St. Victor, On the Sacraments l. n. et scr. (P.L. CLXXVI, 35): "The sacraments of grace, through the invocation of the Trinity, receive sanctification in themselves and then confer sanctification, so that from sanctification they may be sanctifying."

33. Observation. - The Protestants object with texts of Scripture: a) affirming that we are justified through faith; and b) excluding the value of works distinct from faith.

Reply to the first: through faith we are justified, because faith is one, indeed the first, of the dispositions required for justification, since it is the root of all the others; whence we are justified through faith in an affirmative sense, not exclusively: for the Scriptures also indicate or require other dispositions (I John III, 3; Rom. VIII, 24; Lk. VII, 47; I John III, 14; Lk. XIII, 3; Acts II, 38; III, 19), indeed they affirm that faith itself does not suffice (I Cor. XIII, 2; Jas. II, 24-26; Gal. V, 6).

To the second: hence those works are excluded which do not rest on faith, such as works of the Mosaic law, or merely natural works, but not works which arise from faith itself, since these also are necessary (Jas. II, 24-26; Mt. VII, 21; Rom. II, 6-13).

These things are customarily explained more broadly in the treatise on Grace.