SACRAMENTS
302
SACRAMENTS
(infra e). The principal cause is one which produces
an effect by a power which it has by reason of its own
nature or by an inherent faculty. An instrumental
cause produces an effect, not by its own power, but
Ijy a power which it receives from the principal agent.
Vdien a carpenter makes a table, he is the principal
cause, his tools are the instrumental causes. God alone
can cause grace as the principal cause; sacraments
can be no more than his instruments "for the}' are
applied to men bv Di^'ine ordinance to cause grace
in them" (St. Thomas. III. Q. Ixii, a. 1). No theo-
logian of to-day defends Occasionalism (see C.\use)
i. e. the sj'stem which taught that the sacraments
caused grace by a kind of concomitance, they being
not real causes but the caus(p siue quibus non: their
reception being mereh' the occasion of conferring
grace. This opinion, according to Pourrat (op.cit.,
167), was defended by St. Bonaventure, Duns Scotus,
Durandus, Occam, and all the Nominalists, and "en-
joyed a real success until the time of the Council of
Trent, when it was transformed into the modern sys-
tem of moral causality". St. Thomas (loc. cit., Ill,
Q. bdi, aa. 1, 4; and "Quodlibeta", 12, a. 14), and
others rejected it on the ground that it reduced the
sacraments to the condition of mere signs.
(e) In solving the problem the next step was the introduction of the system of dispositive instrumental causality, explained by Alexander of Hales (Summa theol., iV, Q. v, membr. 4), adopted and perfected by St. Thomas (IV Sent., d. 1, Q. i, a. 4), defended by many theologians down to the sixteenth century, and re\-ived in our daj^s by Father Billot, S. J. ("De eccl. sacram.", I, Rome, 1900, pp. 96 sq., 107 sq.). For controversy on this subject, see "Irish Eccles. Rec- ord", Nov., 1899; "Amer. Eccl. Review", May and June. 1900, Jan. and May, 1901. According to this theorj' the sacraments do not efficiently and immedi- ately cause grace itself, but they cause ex opere op- eralo and instrumentally, a something else — the char- acter (in some cases) or a spiritual ornament or form — which will be a "disposition" entithng the soul to grace ("di.spositio exigitiva gratia;"; "titulus exigi- tivus gratiae". Billot, loc. cit.). It must be admitted that this theory would be most convenient in explain- ing "re\'iviscence" of the sacraments (infra, VII, c). Again.st it the following objections are made: (a) From the time of the Council of Trent down to recent times little was heard of this system. (i3) The "orna- ment", or "disposition", entitling the soul to grace is not well e\-plained, hence explains very little. (7) Since this "disposition" must be something spiritual and of the supernatural order, and the sacraments can cau.se it, why can they not cause the grace itself? (5) In his "Summa theologica" St. Thomas does not mention this di.spositive causality: hence we may rea- sonably believe that he abandoned it (for controversy, see reviews sup. cil.).
(f) Since the time of the Council of Trent theolo- gians almost unanimously have taught tliat the sacra- ments are the efficient instrumental cause of grace itself. The definition of the Council of Trent, that the sacraments "contain the grace which they sig- nify", that they "confer grace ex opere operato" (Sess. VII, can. 6, 8;, seemed to justify the assertion, which waH not contested until quite recently. Yet the end of the controversy had not come. What was the nature of that causality? Did it belong to the phy- sical or to the moral order? A physical cause really and immediaUily produces its effects, either as the principal agent or as the instrument used, as when a Bculptf)r U8f« a f;hi.sel to carve a statue. A moral cause is one which mfjve>i or entreats a physical cause to act. It also can be principal or instrumental, e. g., a bishop who in perw)n successfully plea^ls for the liberation of a prisoner is the principal moral cause, a letter sent by hirn would be the instrumental moral cause, of the freedom granted. The expressions used
by St. Thomas seem clearlj- to indicate that the sacra-
ments act after the manner of physical causes. He
says that there is in the sacraments a virtue produc-
tive of grace (III, Q. Ixii, a. 4) and he answers objec-
tions against attributing such power to a corporeal
instrument by simply stating that such power is not
inherent in them and does not reside in them per-
manently, but is in them only so far and so long as
they are instruments in the hands of Almighty God
(loc. cit., ad lum and 3ui"). Cajetan, Suarez, and
a host of other great theologians defend this system,
which is usually termed Thomistic. The language of
the Scripture, the expressions of the Fathers, the De-
crees of the councils, they say, are so strong that noth-
ing short of an impossibility will justify a denial of
this dignity to the sacraments of the New Law.
Many facts must be admitted which we cannot fully
explain. The body of man acts on his spiritual soul;
fire acts, in some way, on souls and on angels. The
strings of a harp, remarks Cajetan (In III, Q. Ixii)
touched b}'- an unskilled hand, produce nothing but
sounds: touched by the hands of a skilful musician
they give forth beautiful melodies. Why cannot the
sacraments, as instruments in the hands of God,
produce grace?
Many grave theologians were not convinced by these arguments, and another school, improperly called the Scotistic, headed by Melchior Cano, De Lugo, and Vasquez, embracing later Henno, Tournely, Franzelin, and others, adopted the system of instru- mental moral causality. The principal moral cause of grace is the Passion of Christ. The sacraments are instruments which move or entreat God effec- tively and infallibly to give his grace to those who re- ceive them with proper dispositions, because, says Melchior Cano, "the price of the blood of Jesus Christ is communicated to them" (see Pourrat, op. cit., 192, 193). This system was further developed by Franzelin, who looks upon the sacraments as being morally an act of Christ (loc. cit., p. 194) . The Thom- ists and Suarez object to this system: (a) Since the sacraments (i. e. the external rites) have no intrinsic value, they do not, according to this explanation, exert any genuine causality; they do not really cause grace, God alone causes the grace: the sacraments do not operate to produce it ; they are only signs or occasions of conferring it. (/3) The Fathers saw something mysterious and inexplicable in the sacraments. In this system wonders cease or are, at least, so much re- duced that the expressions used by the Fathers seem altogether out of place. (7) This theory does not suffi- ciently distinguisli, in efficacy, fhe sacraments of the Gospel from tlie sacraments of the Old Law (cf. Bil- luart, "Sunuiia St. Tliomie", ed. Le(juette, tome VI, p. 137). Nevertheless, because it avoids certain dif- ficulties and obscurities of the physical causality theory, the system of moral cau.sality has found many defenders, and to-day if we consider numbers alone, it has authority in its favour.
Heceiitlj' both of the.se systems have been vigor- ously attacked by Father Billot (op. cit., 107 sq.), who proposes a new explanation. He revives the old theory that the sacraments do not immediately cause grace itself, but a disposition or title to grace (supra e). This disposition is produced by the sjwiraments, neither physically nor morally, but imperatively. Sacraments are practical signs of an intentional order: they manifest God's intention to give spiritual bene- fits; this manifestation of the Divine intention is a title exigent of grace; (op. cit., 59 sq., 123 sq.; Pourrat, op. cit., 104; Cronin in reviews, sup. cil.). Father liillot defends his oi)inions with remarkable acumen. Patrons of the jjliysical causality gratefully iinte his attaek ag.'iinsl the moral causality, but object to the new explanation, that the; imperative or the int('ntional causality, as distinct from the action of signs, occasions, moral or physical instruments (o) is conceived with
