Prevenient Actual Grace and Supernatural Finality: Expanding the Nature-Grace Analysis

Abstract

This article expands the nature-grace analysis offered by recent critics of Henri de Lubac, who argue that human beings receive a supernatural finality from grace rather than from the ontological structure of human nature itself, by demonstrating that prevenient actual grace received prior to justification confers an imperfect supernatural finality to its recipient. Drawing from Thomas Aquinas, the article examines the need for and presence of grace in human beings who are not yet in a state of sanctifying grace. It then explains how one grace leads to another grace as the human journey to beatitude unfolds. Finally, the article shows that prevenient actual graces bring about vital acts that are entitatively supernatural, which, as such, confer an imperfect supernatural finality to their recipient.