2. THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH.—The Catholic Church teaches the absolute necessity of actual grace for all stages on the way to salvation. We shall demonstrate this in five separate theses.
*Thesis I: Prevenient grace is absolutely necessary, not only for faith, but for the very beginning of faith.
Proof. The Second Council of Orange defined against the Semipelagians: “If any one say that increase in faith, as well as the beginning of faith, and the very impulse by which we are led to believe in Him who justifies the sinner, and by which we obtain the regeneration of holy Baptism, is in us not as a gift of grace, that is to say, through the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, but by nature, ... is an adversary of the dogmatic teaching of the Apostles....”(303)
a) This is thoroughly Scriptural doctrine, as St. Augustine(304) and Prosper(305) proved. St. Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians had opened the eyes of Augustine, as he himself admits. 1 Cor. IV, 7: “For who distinguisheth(306) thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” The Apostle means to say: In matters pertaining to salvation no man has any advantage over his fellow men, because all receive of the grace of God without any merits of their own. This statement would be false if any man were able to perform even the smallest salutary act without the aid of grace.
With a special view to faith the same Apostle teaches: “For by grace you are saved through faith,(307) and that not of yourselves,(308) for it is the gift of God;(309) not of works,(310) that no man may glory.”(311) This, too, would be false if faith could be traced to a purely natural instinct or to some _meritum de congruo_ in the Semipelagian sense.(312) Our Lord Himself, in his famous discourse on the Holy Eucharist, unmistakably describes faith and man’s preparation for it as an effect of prevenient grace. “No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him.”(313) The metaphorical expression “come to me,” according to the context, means “believe in me;” whereas the Father’s “drawing” plainly refers to the operation of prevenient grace. Cfr. John VI, 65 sq.: “But there are some of you that believe not.... Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by the Father.” John VI, 29: “This is the work of God,(314) that you believe in him whom he hath sent.” According to our Saviour’s own averment, therefore, preaching is of no avail unless grace gives the first impulse leading to faith.