“The natural man does not understand the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” — 1 Corinthians 2:14

Tim Staples, a Catholic writer, says, “…from a philosophical perspective, the soul is pure spirit and is the form of the body…

For St. Paul, the “spiritual” element in man represents the God-consciousness that is introduced into the life of a man through grace. We get a great picture of the Pauline understanding of this in I Corinthians 2 and 3.

He refers to men in three categories. The “unspiritual man” or literally the “soulish man” (Gr.—psukikos’, I Cor. 2:14), “fleshly men” (Gr.—sarki’nois, I Cor. 3:1), and the “spiritual” man (Gr.—pnuematikos’, also in I Cor. 3:1).

The “soulish” man or “natural man” as it is sometimes translated in I Cor. 2:14, or as the RSVCE has it, the “unspiritual man,” is someone who is caught up in the “soulish” realm wherein resides the intellect and will. But he is apart from God’s grace to aid his understanding.

“The unspiritual man (psukikos’) does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

The “fleshly man” (sarki’nois) refers to the man who is dominated by his “lower nature” or the passions, and as such, he cannot please God. He too, like the “unspiritual man” is acting apart from grace. Whereas the “spiritual man” (pneumatikos’)is one who is allowing himself to be led by the Spirit of God. I Cor. 3:1-3 puts it this way:

“But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it; and even yet you are not ready, for you are still of the flesh.”

At times, in St. Paul’s writings, as well as other places in the New Testament, the “unspiritual man” and the “fleshly man” are telescoped into one category. They are referred to as being “in the flesh.” Romans 8 is a great example of this. Here, St. Paul does not make the fine distinction he makes in I Corinthians 2-3 between the psukikos’ and the sarki’nois. He lumps them all into the one category of “in the flesh” whether they are being dominated by the “soulish” realm or the “fleshly.” “The flesh” would then simply represent the human person apart from grace. Keep an eye out for the use of “flesh” and “spirit” here in Romans 8:3-14:

“For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him… for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”

So we see here in Romans 8, St. Paul puts it more simply in saying, in essence, one is either led by the Spirit or one is “in the flesh.” One is either being led by the Spirit and so is in friendship with God, or we would say, he is “in a state of grace,” or one is apart from grace and therefore in a state of being wherein one “cannot please God.”

…  St. Paul is introducing the “God-consciousness” that is introduced into man’s soul through grace and elevates him to a level of understanding and loving God that he could not attain to according to his nature alone.”

~~~

For the entire Tim Staples essay see Catholic Answers

“Those who pray will be saved, those who do not will be lost”

James 4:2: “you have not, because you ask not.“

By Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, Doctor of the Church

The great Doctor of the Church, Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, wrote,

“The absolute necessity of prayer is taught throughout the Holy Scriptures, and by all the holy Fathers; while, on the other hand, I see that Christians are very careless in their practice of this great means of salvation. And, sadder still, I see that preachers take very little care to speak of it to their flocks, and confessors to their penitents I see, moreover, that even the spiritual books now popular do not speak sufficiently of it; for there is not a thing preachers, and confessors, and spiritual books should insist upon with more warmth and energy than prayer.

“Not but that they teach many excellent means of keeping ourselves in the grace of God, such as avoiding the occasions of sin, frequenting the sacraments, resisting temptations, hearing the Word of God, meditating on the eternal truths, and other means, “all of them, I admit, most useful; but, I say, what profit is there in sermons, meditations, and all the other means pointed out by masters of the spiritual life, if we forget to pray? since our Lord has declared that he will grant his graces to no one who does not pray: ‘Ask and ye shall receive.‘

“… to save one’s soul without prayer is most difficult, and even (as we have seen) impossible… But by praying our salvation is made secure, and very easy….if we do not pray, we have no excuse, because the grace of prayer is given to everyone… if we are not saved, the whole fault will be ours; and we shall have our own failure to answer for, because we did not pray”

“We are so poor that we have nothing; but if we pray we are no longer poor. If we are poor, God is rich.

Without Prayer We Are Lost

“Without prayer, in the ordinary course of Providence, all the meditations that we make, all our resolutions, all our promises, will be useless. If we do not pray, we shall always be unfaithful to the inspirations of God, and to the promises we make to him. Because, in order actually to do good, to conquer temptations, to practise virtues, and to observe God’s law, it is not enough to receive illumination from God, and to meditate and make resolutions, but we require, moreover, the actual assistance of God; and, as we shall soon see, he does not give this assistance except to those who pray, and pray with perseverance.” **

— from The Great Means of Prayer “which he considered the most useful of all his writings, dating back to the year 1759” and The Great Means of Salvation and of Perfection.

Sufficient Grace

Bellarmine makes a sound distinction on this point, and says that for avoiding fresh sins every sinner has at all times sufficient assistance, at least mediately:

“The necessary and sufficient assistance for the avoidance of sin is given by God’s goodness to all men at all times, either immediately or mediately. . . . We say or mediately because it is certain that some men have not that help by which they can immediately avoid sin, but yet have the help which enables them to obtain from God greater safeguards, by the assistance of which they will avoid sins.”2601

But for the grace of conversion, he says that this is not given at all times to the sinner; but that no one will be ever so far left to himself “as to be surely and absolutely deprived of God’s help through all this life, so as to have cause to despair of salvation.”2602 And so say the theologians who follow St. Thomas—thus Soto: “I am absolutely certain, and I believe that all the holy Doctors who are worthy of the name were always most positive, that no one was ever deserted by God in this mortal life.”2603

And the reason is evident; for if the sinner was quite abandoned by grace, either his sins afterwards committed could no longer be imputed to him, or he would be under an obligation to do that which he had no power to fulfil; but it is a positive rule of St. Augustine that there is never a sin in that which cannot be avoided:

“No one sins in that which can by no means be avoided.”2604

And this is agreeable to the teaching of the Apostle: But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be templed above that which you are able; but will also make with the temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it. 2605

The word “issue”means the divine assistance, which God always gives to the tempted to enable them to resist, as St. Cyprian explains it: “He will make with the temptation a way of escape.”2606 And Primasius more clearly: “He will so order the issue that we shall be able to endure; that is, in temptation he will strengthen you with the help of his grace, so that ye may be able to bear it.”2607 St. Augustine and St. Thomas go so far as to say that God would be unjust and cruel if he obliged any one to a command which he could not keep. St. Augustine says,

“It is the deepest injustice to reckon any one guilty of sin for not doing that which he could not do. 2608

And St. Thomas:

“God is not more cruel than man; but it is reckoned cruelty in a man to oblige a person by law to do that which he cannot fulfil; therefore we must by no means imagine this of God.”2609

“It is, however, different,” he says, “when it is through his own neglect that he has not the grace to be able to keep the commandments,”2610 which properly means, when man neglects to avail himself of the remote grace of prayer, in order to obtain the proximate grace to enable him to keep the law, as the Council of Trent teaches:

“God does not command impossibilities; but by commanding admonishes you to do what you can, and to ask for that which is beyond your power; and by his help enables you to do it.”2611 St. Augustine repeats his decision in many other places that there is no sin in what cannot be avoided.

In one he says, “Whether there be iniquity or whether there be justice, if it was not in the man’s power, there can be no just reward, no just punishment.”2612

Elsewhere he says, “Finally, if no power is given them to abstain from their works, we cannot hold that they sin.”2613 Again, “The devil, indeed, suggests; but with the help of God it is in our power to choose or to refuse his suggestions. And so, when by God’s help it is in your power, why do you not rather determine to obey God than him?”2614 Again, “No one, therefore, is answerable for what he has not received.”2615 Again, “No one is worthy of blame for not doing that which he cannot do.”2616

Other Fathers have taught the same doctrine. So St. Jerome, “We are not forced by necessity to be either virtuous or vicious; for where there is necessity, there is neither condemnation nor crown.”2617 Tertullian: “For a law would not be given to him who had it not in his power to observe it duly.”2618 Marcus the Hermit:

“Hidden grace assists us; but it depends on us to do or not to do good according to ourstrength.”2619 So also St. Irenæus, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Chrysostom, and others. Nor is there any difficulty in what St. Thomas says, that grace is denied to some persons, in punishment of original sin: “To whomsoever the assistance of grace is given, it is given through simple mercy; but from those to whom it is not given, it is withheld justly in punishment of previous sin, or at least of original sin, as Augustine says.”2620

…[for] how can sin be imputed to a man who must sin in some way or another?

Elsewhere, “All the misfortunes of unbelievers spring from too great an attachment to the things of life. This sickness of heart weakens and darkens the understanding, and leads to eternal ruin. If they would try to heal their hearts by purging them of their vices they would soon receive light, which would show them the necessity of joining the Catholic Church where alone is salvation” — http://www.olrl.org

We also hold, as we said before , that efficacious grace is necessary for the observance of the commandments; but we say that for actual prayer, whereby we may obtain efficacious grace, the sufficient grace which God gives to all the faithful is enough . And thus we do no violence to the truth that God’s commandments are not impossible to any one; since every man, by means of the sufficient grace only, can perform such an easy thing as prayer; and by means of prayer he will obtain the assistance of gratuitous efficacious grace, which is necessary for the actual performance of difficult things—such as the observance of the commandments.

Otherwise, if sufficient grace were not enough for actual prayer, and the addition of efficacious grace were always necessary, and if this were denied to any man—as, in fact, efficacious grace is denied to many—I cannot see how the commandments of God could be said to be possible to such a person, and how God could demand of him the observance of his law (at the time when he denies him even the efficacious grace to enable him actually to pray), and how with justice he could condemn him to hell for not observing

…And hence we can easily understand the axiom universally received in the schools: “To him who does what in him lies, God does not refuse his grace.” 2746 That is, to the man who prays , and thus makes good use of the sufficient grace which enables him to do such an easy thing as prayer, God does not refuse the efficacious grace to enable him to execute difficult things.

Habert, Bishop of Vabres and Doctor of the Sorbonne [says,] We think, further, that ‘sufficient grace’is a grace that disposes for efficacious grace, since from a good use of it God afterwards grants to the created will the grace that performs the complete effect.”2752 He had said before that “all Catholic Doctors, of all schools, have professed, and do profess, that a real inward grace is given, which is capable of persuading the will to consent to good, though, on account of the free resistance of the will, it sometimes does not persuade it thus to consent,”2753 and for this doctrine be quotes Gamaches, Duval, Isambert, Perez, Le Moyne, and others. Then he goes on: “The assistance, therefore, of sufficient grace disposes us for the reception of efficacious grace; and is in some sort efficacious, namely, of an incomplete effect, obtained first remotely, then more nearly, and at last proximately—such as is an act of faith, hope, love, and, mixed with these, one of prayer…

Gaudenzio Bontempi in like manner demonstrated that sufficient grace obtains efficacious grace by means of prayer, which is given to all who will avail themselves of it…Dominic Soto asks, “Why of two persons whom God is most ready and desirous to convert, one is drawn by grace, and not the other?”And he answers: “No other reason can be given, except that one consents and co-operates, while the other does not co-operate.”2767

So, to verify the proposition that it is in a man’s power to persevere, it is necessary to grant both that he can, without needing any further grace, obtain by prayer the assistance requisite for perseverance; and, also, that with only the sufficient grace common to all, without need of any special grace, he can actually pray, and by prayer obtain perseverance; otherwise it could not be said that every man had the grace necessary for perseverance, at least remotely or mediately, by means of prayer.”

Again, it is strongly recommend that the entire treatise be read by those who can for an even fuller and more comprehensive appreciation of the Church’s teaching on Christ’s universal salvific will of God in Christ and its reconciliation with man’s liberty to either accept and pray for more light, or to reject and lose the possibility of efficacious graces unto salvation.

More…

** “Those who pray will certainly be saved, those who do not will be damned.” — St. Alphonsus Liguori, Del gran Mezzo della preghiera