Some, following the teaching of the Scotist school, ascribed the supernatural character of salutary acts to their free acceptation on the part of God, holding them to be purely natural in their essence and raised to the supernatural sphere merely _per denominationem extrinsecam_.(290) This view is untenable. For if nature, as such, possessed the intrinsic power to perform salutary acts, irrespective of their acceptation by God, the Fathers and councils would err in teaching that this power is derived from the immediate graces of illumination and strengthening.(291)
Others hold that the salutary acts which grace enables man to perform, are supernatural only _quoad modum_; because while it is the Holy Ghost Himself who incites the natural faculties to salutary thoughts and good resolves, He does not _eo ipso_ raise these thoughts and resolves to the supernatural plane. This theory, besides being open to the same objection which we have urged against the first, involves another difficulty. If all salutary acts were supernatural only _quoad modum_, sanctifying grace, which is as certainly supernatural in its essence as the beatific vision of God,(292) would cease to have an adequate purpose; for the intrinsic reason for its existence is precisely that it raises the nature of the justified into a permanent supernatural state of being.
A third school of theologians tries to solve the difficulty by adding to the natural operation of the intellect and the will some accidental supernatural _modus_. There are several such _modi_, which, though inhering in nature and really distinct therefrom, depend solely on the Holy Ghost, and consequently transcend the natural powers of man, _e.g._ the duration or intensity of a salutary act. This theory at first blush appears more plausible than the other two, but it cannot be squared with the teaching of Tradition. In the first place, the duration or intensity of a salutary act cannot affect its essence or nature. Then again, every such accidental supernatural _modus_ is produced either by grace alone, or by grace working conjointly with free-will. In the former hypothesis it would be useless, because it would not render the free salutary act, as such, supernatural; in the latter case it could do no more than aid the will to do what is morally impossible, whereas every salutary act is in matter of fact a physical impossibility, that is, impossible to unaided nature.(293)