Article I: On the Causality of the Sacraments Properly So Called and Efficient

St. Thomas III, q. 62, a. 1 and 3; on IV Sentences, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4; Disputed Question On Truth 27, a. 4.

42. State of the question. - A. Some have said that the sacraments are not efficient causes of grace per se, because they operate something, but causes per accidens, because God, once the sacraments have been placed, operates the effect.

Thus many of the older authors at the time of St. Thomas, then Scotus, Henry of Ghent, Durandus, Gabriel Biel, the Nominalists, and others; St. Bonaventure also favors it, although he speaks hesitantly. St. Thomas attacked this opinion, because the sacraments would not be true and properly so-called causes, but only signs and conditions without which grace would not be produced; which seems repugnant to the sayings of Sacred Scripture and especially of the Holy Fathers:

"Some say that they are not a cause of grace by operating something, but because God, the sacraments having been employed, operates grace in the soul; and they set down the example of one who, bringing a leaden denarius, receives a hundred pounds from the ordinance of the king: not that that denarius operates anything toward having the aforesaid quantity of money, but the will of the king alone operates this... But if someone considers rightly, this mode does not transcend the ratio of sign; for the leaden denarius is nothing except a certain sign of the royal ordinance concerning this, that money be received by this man... According to this, therefore, the sacraments of the New Law would be nothing more than signs of grace; whereas nevertheless from many authorities of the Saints it is held that the sacraments of the New Law not only signify, but cause grace" (q. 62, a. 1).

Although this opinion was not expressly proscribed by the Councils of Florence and Trent, nevertheless it cannot admit in the proper sense their doctrine, which is nothing other than the voice of tradition: namely, "that the sacraments of the New Law differ from the ancient ones in that they contain and confer grace, while the sacraments of the Old Law did not cause it." Whence from this time it was abandoned by theologians.

B. More recent authors have changed that opinion somewhat: the sacraments are administered in the name of Christ, and consequently are morally actions of Christ, just as the actions of an ambassador are judged rather actions of the king than of himself. But the actions of Christ have merit, an objective infinite dignity. Therefore the sacraments participate in this dignity, insofar as Christ derives merits into them and presents them to God for obtaining and demanding our sanctification. Now the merits of Christ by their dignity have the power of moving God to bestowing grace. Therefore the sacraments are moral causes of grace as truly as the merits of Christ themselves: this is the only difference, that the merits have their own proper dignity, while the sacraments have dignity derived from them; whence the sacraments are moral causes, not principal but instrumental.

Melchior Cano, Molina, Becanus, Vasquez, and many others of the Society of Jesus attribute moral causality to the sacraments; especially Lugo, Franzelin, and Pesch, who proposed it better.

43. Are the sacraments to be called moral causes? - This manner of speaking is less approved, for various reasons:

1. If the sacraments were only moral causes, they would not be properly so-called efficient and instrumental causes, and therefore what the Holy Fathers and Councils assert of them would not be verified in the proper sense.

2. Granted that they were instruments of Christ as man, nevertheless they would not be instruments of God, whom they move and by whom they are not moved for obtaining grace, for otherwise God would pray to Himself.

3. They would be impetratory causes. But impetration is a causality proper to sacrifice, which is the sign of internal prayer; but the ratio of sacrifice differs essentially from the ratio of sacrament. Therefore the impetrative causality of sacrifice is not to be attributed to the sacraments.

4. They would not be true causes but only signs: a) Sacramental actions are not from the very person of Christ, but are only morally judged to be His actions. But merit is the value of a personal action and therefore inseparable from it. Therefore the sacraments do not have intrinsically the dignity of the merits of Christ, but only extrinsically are judged to have this dignity. - b) That which in the sacraments causes grace is not so much the operation of the minister as the external sign itself. But this cannot have moral dignity, but at most represent merits as the price by which grace is acquired. Therefore they are only signs of the merits of Christ and of grace.

5. Whence this moral causality does not sufficiently distinguish them from the sacraments of the Old Law, which also represent the merits of Christ, as will be said in a. 4: for the fact that the merits are past or future does not change the mode of causality.

44. Are the sacraments true efficient instrumental causes? - If the sacraments are not moral causes, it follows that they are true efficient causes: not indeed principal causes, because of their own nature they do not have supernatural power proportioned to grace or to other supernatural effects; whence the effect produced is not assimilated to them but to God; - but instrumental causes, which from the influx of God express order to grace.

Hence it is understood in what sense the sacraments are said to contain grace: not as if it were in them as an accident in a subject, a thing in a place, or liquid in a vessel, as the Protestants falsely impute to Catholics; but as in a sign and in an efficient cause: for it is necessary that the effect be somehow pre-contained in the power of the cause.