Thomas Aquinas on Grace as a Mysterious Kind of Creature

Elliot Polsky, University of St. Thomas, Houston, Tex., USA, at Studia Gilsoniana.

"Among these ancillary questions and arguments are those concerning the subject of grace for Aquinas, Aquinas’s classification of grace within the Aristotelian categories, and the reason for the mystery and unconsciousness of grace. These questions appear unrelated, but, as will be seen in this paper, they are each logically connected to each other and to the overall thesis that sanctifying grace is created, not uncreated. This paper aims to make Aquinas’s thesis that grace is created more palatable to objectors by addressing each of these ancillary questions."

See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, in Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 52 Vol., 1952) volumes 19-20, and Great Books of the Western World (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volumes 17-18.