Some Arguments on the Nature-Grace Debate

    The Nature-Grace debate may not be something a non-Christian is familiar with, but in short, it is a long-standing debate in Christian theology as to how God's grace (some actuality in relation to the capacity for holiness given to creatures as a free gift directly from God) relates to the natures (the essences of things understood as principles of the scope of a thing's activities) of creatures. The debate, as least from what I have seen, focuses on whether the giving of God's (salvific) grace to creatures satisfies a natural appetite in the creature or a supernatural appetite in the creature (and thus whether the appetite for God is a natural or supernatural appetite), the degree to which God is obligated to Himself to provide creatures with (salvific) grace, and whether the beatific vision (the experience of God's essence and the final end of Man) is a natural end or supernatural end.

    Here I have whipped up a few arguments for the position that the provision of salvific grace to the creature (which entails the acceptance into and experience of heaven which both sides of the debate agree is the final end of Man) satisfies a supernatural appetite and thus renders the beatific vision a supernatural end. Both arguments flow from the same premise but in different respects. The first argument (which is my formulation of an argument made on this episode of Philosophy for the People) examines natural appetites from the perspective of the beings in the world which may satisfy those appetites. The second argument examines natural appetites from the perspective of the agent that has the appetites.

1. Natural appetites always are in principle satisfiable.

2. If (1), then if there is some natural appetite in the world, then there exists something that in principle satisfies that natural appetite.

C1. If there is some natural appetite in the world, then there exists something that in principle satisfies that natural appetite. (1, 2)

3. The bestowment of the beatific vision through salvation is an act of grace per se.

4. If (3), then the absence of any bestowment of the beatific vision through salvation is compossible/compatible with the existence of creation.

C2. The absence of any bestowment of the beatific vision through salvation is compossible/compatible with the existence of creation. (3, 4)

C3. If (C2), and if there is an appetite in the world for the beatific vision/salvation, then it is not a natural appetite. (1, C1)

5. There is an appetite in the world for the beatific vision/salvation (given that it is necessarily man's final end).

C4. The appetite for the beatific vision/salvation is not a natural appetite. (C2, C3, 5)

6. If the appetite for the beatific vision/salvation is not a natural appetite, then the beatific vision/salvation is not a natural end.

C5. The beatific vision/salvation is not a natural end. (C4, 6)

    To clarify before defending, the first premise does not mean that every natural appetite will be satisfied, because there can always be conditions extrinsic to the appetite which prevent the satisfaction of that appetite, such as being stranded in the desert dying of thirst. Now, in order for appetites (let alone natural appetites) to even exist, there must be some object toward which it is directed; appetites are intrinsically intentional (whether the object is known by the agent is irrelevant in this context). For example, the appetite for the sexual act has as its object (or end) the union proper to that act; an appetite without an appetitive object is unintelligible. Following that, any appetite which is not able to be satisfied in principle is precisely an appetite toward which there is no being that in principle can satisfy that appetite, so if an appetite is intrinsically oriented toward some being which could satisfy it and there is an appetite toward which no being corresponds for its satisfaction, then there simply is no appetite! So, if there are no appetites that could not be satisfied in principle, then (1) is true.

    (3) just means that the act of salvation is an act of grace in itself and not merely in a derivative manner. For example, there are certain things that God owes to His creatures given that He creates, which is an act of grace per se, and so this justly giving to creatures what is due can indeed be called an act of grace but only insofar as that act of justice is derivative from an act of grace per se. I would think that both parties would agree that salvation is gracious per se and not something owed on the supposition of an act of grace per se, but that remains to be seen.

    If (4) is false, then bestowing salvation upon creatures is not an act of grace per se but rather of distributive justice which implies something owed on the part of the creature. One objection is that the act of creation itself is of grace, since a non-existent creature cannot be owed anything, let alone existence, and so there is at least one act of grace per se the absence of which is not compossible with the existence of creation because existence is such an act of grace! Of course I would grant this, but this has little relevance on what other acts of grace per se are necessary for the existence of creation, since I would precisely argue that any act of grace other than existence which would be essential to the existence of creation would only be an act of grace per aliud insofar as it is necessary given the act of creation (such as preserving the conditions proportional to the natural operations of creatures as both Dionysius and Aquinas point out), and so the act of creation is the only act of grace per se which is essential to the existence of creation. 

    So, if that is the case, then the act of salvation being a necessary consequent of the act of creation and thus essential to the act of creation would be an act of grace per aliud, thus entailing the falsity of (3) and (4) and putting the act of salvation among the acts of God's distributive justice, salvation being owed on the supposition of an act of grace per se. But surely the orthodox Christian could not affirm that the reception of the beatific vision through salvation is something owed to us on the supposition that God creates us! This severely underestimates the merciful and loving nature of salvation, and what does this do to the theological virtue of hope but neglect its significance? It is precisely the punishment of sin which corresponds to His distributive justice, not the forgiveness of sins, which corresponds to His going beyond justice in an act of grace per se.

In conclusion, (4) and thus (3) are really the crux of the argument here, and depending on which line of reasoning seems more plausible, the conclusion will be accepted or rejected.

    Both parties would agree to (5).

    (6) is pretty uncontroversial. For a natural appetite to have a supernatural end is for the end of the appetite to go beyond the appetite, which is absurd. It would be the same as saying that man has a natural knowledge of angels whose natures are beyond ours, meaning that we have natural knowledge of that which is beyond our nature, which again is clearly absurd.

    Given the conclusion, it is easily assumed that if it is not a natural end then it is a supernatural end, which is the point of the debate. The next version is much shorter and borrows much of the same kind of reasoning for the defenses of its premises as the previous argument.

1. Natural appetites are always in principle satisfiable.

2. If (1), then any being with natural appetites must have some natural capacities by which they can satisfy their natural appetites.

C1. Any being with natural appetites must have some natural capacities by which they can satisfy their natural appetites.

3. If the reception of salvific grace corresponds to a natural capacity in the creature for it (given that a natural capacity is what properly belongs to a thing), then the reception of salvific grace properly belongs to the creature.

4. It is not the case that the reception of salvific grace properly belongs to the creature.

C2. It is not the case that the reception of salvific grace corresponds to a natural capacity in the creature for it.

    (2) is pretty simple. Rather than looking at the thing in reality by which an appetite can be satisfied, this looks at the agent with the appetite. If I have a natural appetite, and is thus directed toward some natural end, I must have some natural capacities by which I could in principle satisfy that appetite. This is firstly because the natural appetites that I have as final causes are present in virtue of my formal cause, and the purpose of the appetites are to motivate the being to increase its perfection, but this increase in perfection is simply going to consist in the perfection of the natural faculties that I also have in virtue of my formal cause, so the existence of natural appetites are inextricably tied with the natural faculties of the agent, and it is through my natural faculties that I could in principle satisfy those appetites, ergo, Q.E.D. Secondly, the falsity of (2) would not be in line with God's distributive justice as the foregoing has indicated.

    (3) is simply uncontroversial given the understanding of what a natural potency is and the comments of mine made in the first argument above.

    Comments regarding a defense of (4) would pretty much be what I have already said in the first argument.

    Overall, the motivations for both arguments are essentially the same, so it is very likely that one would be persuaded to either accept both or reject both arguments. This took quite a while to write up, several hours in fact, due to having to rewrite a good chunk of it among other things, so if it is not as cleanly structured as my other posts I apologize. I am relatively new to this debate and so I will still need to do much more reading on the topic as well to refine my position.

    Thanks for reading!