Gratia non tollit naturam, sed perficit is translated as '

Grace Grace may refer to: Places United States * Grace, Idaho, a city * Grace (CTA station), Chicago Transit Authority's Howard Line, Illinois * Little Goose Creek (Kentucky), location of Grace post office * Grace, Carroll County, Missouri, an uninc ...

does not destroy

nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

, but perfects it', or 'grace does not remove nature but fulfills it'. This Phrase is the word of

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, Dominican Order, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino, Italy, Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest who was an influential List of Catholic philo ...

(c. 1224–1274). He observes, ". . . grace does not destroy nature, but fulfills its potential . . ." (

Summa Theologiae The ''Summa Theologiae'' or ''Summa Theologica'' (), often referred to simply as the ''Summa'', is the best-known work of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), a scholastic theologian and Doctor of the Church. It is a compendium of all of the main ...

(ST) I, 1, 8 ad 2). "Since therefore grace does not destroy nature but perfects it, natural reason should minister to faith as the natural bent of the will ministers to charity." Thomas maintains that the truth of human nature finds total fulfilment through sanctifying grace, since this is "perfectio naturae rationalis creatae" (''Quaestiones quodlibetales'', 4, 6). He stated that grace does not contradict nature. God's creation cannot be totally corrupted by human sin; grace heals the incomplete natural notion of God. Aquinas divides grace into two basic kinds (ST I-II, III). One is ''gratia gratum faciens''. It commonly is translated as "sanctifying grace." This is the grace that sanctifies an individual, granting the person a participation in the divine nature and ordering him to God as to one’s supernatural end. It is this grace that receives the much greater part of the attention in the treatise on grace. The other kind of grace is ''gratia gratis data'', commonly translated as "gratuitous grace." The phrase is not altogether happy; after all, the first kind of grace is also gratuitously, in the sense of freely, given by God. This gratuitous grace, in the technical sense, is given not for the sanctification of the recipient, but to allow the recipient to help others to God (I-II. III, 1c).

References

{{reflist Catholic theology and doctrine Christian terminology Latin religious words and phrases Latin words and phrases

See also

References