[The Interplay of] Thomistic Notion of Grace as Humans’ Metaphysical Participation in God and the Question of Human Freewill/Freedom

Abstract

The term ‘grace,’ is a generic word used especially in Christian, theological and metaphysical traditions. Grace (in Greek-χάρις) principally implies the action of God in the life of humanity created in his (God’s) image and likeness, since God is, as it were, the exemplar. In its most intrinsic nature, grace is a mystery whose totality eludes the grasp of the human mind. On the other hand, grace depicts the action of God on the human soul that enables it to partake in God. This implies that humanity’s participatio in the activity of the ultimate Principle of all Being, elevates its nature to god-likeness. This participatio in the Uncreated Being according to erudite thomists like, Cornelio Fabio, plays a central role in Aquinas’s metaphysics. Grace then, is the dynamic interactional operation and activity of God in humans. In effect, grace articulates the mercy and compassion of the heart of God, which brings back the drifting and the malefactor. In his discourse on grace, Thomas Aquinas strikingly highlights the above aspects while focusing on the activity and mission ad-extra of the Triune God, the principle and telos of grace. Aquinas depicts this providential Divine activity in rational creatures within an exitus-reditus structural framework and underpins the centrality of the Incarnation. In antecedent, Augustine highlights a two-fold interaction in humans characterised by its theo-anthropomorphic propensity, which he denotes as grace and freewill in the Divine and human order respectively. Lonergan, inter alia, further interprets grace as a dynamic force that enables humans to right action in diverse ways. In view of the foregoing, one wonders what justifies the anthropocentric and aberrational tendencies in the contemporary human society. This essay considers briefly the interplay of this Divine mission for humanity’s ‘participation’ in the life of God and the question of human freewill/freedom.