Created vs Uncreated Grace?

Leevo said:

Hey guys, this is my first post in OBOB. I have been in the Eastern Orthodox forum, TAW, for quite some time now, but my first post there was about whether I should remain in RCIA to become Catholic, or stop and consider Orthodoxy and why...

Anyway, in one of the replies that I got, someone mentioned a thing about Created vs. Uncreated Grace. I was wondering if you guys over here might go into more detail as to what this is? Also, can you tell me what the Catholic Church teaches on it and defend that position (specifically, if the RCC teaches created Grace).

As for my understanding, Created Grace just means that Grace was created. And uncreated grace means that it is an energy that radiates from God.

The reply I am referring to is from ArmyMatt over at TAW, and from his reply:

Thanks!

Click to expand...

I found this discussion on Catholic Answers to be informative:

Created vs. Uncreated Grace - Catholic Answers Forums

I am not very well versed in this debate

well the Spirit of God is uncreated
so if we just mean by His Grace as letting us bask in His Spirit, then it is uncreated

if we mean Grace by the particular benefits that God gives to us, well these things have beginnings and ends
like if God allows us to learn something about Him, like experience a healing or grow deeper in Him, that learning, that growing, has a start.

God himself, insofar as in his love has predetermined gifts of grace. there are three forms of uncreated grace:

1) The hypostatic union

2) Divine indwelling

3) Beatific Vision


With the Hypostatic Union, God has communicated himself in the Incarnation of Christ's humanity (the grace of union) so intimately that Jesus of Nazareth is a divine person.

In the second and third communications, the souls of the justified on earth and of the glorified in heaven are elevated to a share in God's own life.

All three are created graces, considered as acts, since they all had a beginning in time. But the gift that is conferred on a creature in these acts is uncreated.


This is from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary.

Leevo said:

Hey guys, this is my first post in OBOB. I have been in the Eastern Orthodox forum, TAW, for quite some time now, but my first post there was about whether I should remain in RCIA to become Catholic, or stop and consider Orthodoxy and why...

Anyway, in one of the replies that I got, someone mentioned a thing about Created vs. Uncreated Grace. I was wondering if you guys over here might go into more detail as to what this is? Also, can you tell me what the Catholic Church teaches on it and defend that position (specifically, if the RCC teaches created Grace).

As for my understanding, Created Grace just means that Grace was created. And uncreated grace means that it is an energy that radiates from God.

The reply I am referring to is from ArmyMatt over at TAW, and from his reply:

Thanks!

Click to expand...

May I give examples of graces that Catholics think of as created:

• sunshine
• rain
• food

And one example that Catholics think of as uncreated grace:

• The love of benevolence on the part of God, conferring supernatural, life. This love of God is uncreated grace.

It is incorrect to claim that Catholics think of all grace as either created or uncreated.

Specifically, God's self giving is giving uncreated grace. Eternal life is the life of Christ given to the faithful and thus it is uncreated life.

I hope this helps.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church...

2000 Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by his love. Habitual grace, the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God's call, is distinguished from actual graces which refer to God's interventions, whether at the beginning of conversion or in the course of the work of sanctification.

1999-the 2000's in the catechism deal with grace, but it doesn't mention it being created. To my knowledge, only St. Thomas Aquinas speculated about supernatural grace being created by God for our benefit. Not everything St. Thomas said is dogmatic. Some of his ideas were indeed incorporated into the Church's de fide teachings, but definitely not all. It seems this idea was not either.

The Orthodox Church focus a lot on St. Gregory Palamas' teachings on this. So do Eastern Catholics. And I never hear the Roman side speak of Grace being created.

The hypostatic union, the divine indwelling, and the beatific vision are all uncreated graces according to Catholicism. And if memory serves I think the scholastics taught that "created" grace was simply the manner in which God infuses these uncreated graces into our being, into our lives, into our hearts on a daily basis in various ways. I thought created grace was more of a means than a substance?

So I think the notions of "created" grace in the West are speculative, not at all dogmatic. You can easily become Catholic and not believe in created grace imho.

With either Catholicism or Orthodoxy, you can get TOTALLY LOST in the terminologies! In Catholicism, getting too much into Thomism and Scholasticism can really give you a brain hemorrhage and lead you to see ALL of Catholicism through that lens. In Orthodoxy, if you delve too deeply into things like St. John Climacus and his Ladder theology or St. Gregory Palamas and his hesychasm and God's energies stuff, you can be equally sucked into a vortex of confusion and bewilderment. I'd stick with the basic real important tenets of both Catholic and Orthodox theology, not these things. But that's just me.

Leevo said:

Hey guys, this is my first post in OBOB. I have been in the Eastern Orthodox forum, TAW, for quite some time now, but my first post there was about whether I should remain in RCIA to become Catholic, or stop and consider Orthodoxy and why...

Anyway, in one of the replies that I got, someone mentioned a thing about Created vs. Uncreated Grace. I was wondering if you guys over here might go into more detail as to what this is? Also, can you tell me what the Catholic Church teaches on it and defend that position (specifically, if the RCC teaches created Grace).

As for my understanding, Created Grace just means that Grace was created. And uncreated grace means that it is an energy that radiates from God.

The reply I am referring to is from ArmyMatt over at TAW, and from his reply:

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Uncreated grace is an energy that radiates from God?

Please go to the CCC and search for the word grace to find out what His Church beleives.