On the Contingency of Grace and the Giving of the Spirit
Quaeritur
Utrum gratia, quae ex necessitate amoris divini oritur, contingenter tamen conferatur, et quomodo huiusmodi contingens donum in ordine Spiritus collocetur.
Whether grace, though proceeding from the necessity of divine love, is nevertheless bestowed contingently, and how such a contingent gift is ordered within the work of the Spirit.
Thesis
Since God is love, Grace arises necessarily from the divine nature. However, since creatures are finite and free, this grace is received contingently. The contingency of grace does not contradict divine necessity but manifests it in temporal form: necessitas amoris becomes contingentia doni. The Holy Spirit mediates this transition, translating eternal plenitude into temporal gift. Accordingly, divine necessity may appear as freedom and love as grace.
Locus Classicus
Ὁ ἄνεμος πνεῖ ὅπου θέλει, καὶ τὴν φωνὴν αὐτοῦ ἀκούεις, ἀλλ’ οὐκ οἶδας πόθεν ἔρχεται καὶ ποῦ ὑπάγει· οὕτως ἐστὶ πᾶς ὁ γεγεννημένος ἐκ τοῦ Πνεύματος.
— Ἰωάννης 3:8
“The wind blows where it wills, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” — John 3:8
Here Christ compares the Spirit’s operation to a wind that moves freely yet lawfully: ubi vult spirat. Grace thus reveals itself as contingent in its temporal bestowal though grounded in divine necessity. The Spirit acts neither by whim nor by determinism, but according to the wise freedom of love.
“Gratia Dei non est secundum debitum, sed secundum libertatem voluntatis eius.”
— Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I–II, q.112, a.1
“The grace of God is not given according to debt, but according to the freedom of His will.” — ST I–II, q.112, a.1
Aquinas locates grace between necessity and arbitrariness. God necessarily wills the good, yet the particular mode of His giving remains free. Grace manifests divine necessity under the aspect of freedom: necessitas amoris in libertate donationis.
“Ἡ χάρις ἐστὶν ἐνέργεια τοῦ Θεοῦ σωτήριος, ἡ ἀπὸ τοῦ Πατρὸς διὰ τοῦ Υἱοῦ ἐν Πνεύματι Ἁγίῳ προϊοῦσα.”
— Γρηγόριος Νύσσης, In Canticum Canticorum Hom. XIII
“Grace is the saving energy of God, proceeding from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.” — Gregory of Nyssa, Homilies on the Song of Songs XIII
Gregory presents grace as the dynamic operation (energeia) of the Triune life itself, as an eternal act proceeding from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. Its contingency in time corresponds to its procession in eternity. What is eternal in God appears as temporal gift to creatures.
“Haec est summa et potissima fides Christianorum: credere Deum esse misericordem, non ex debito, non propter merita nostra, sed ex mera voluntate et gratuita bonitate.”
— Martin Luther, De Servo Arbitrio (WA 18, 719)
“This is the sum and substance of the Christian faith: to believe that God is merciful—not from obligation, nor because of our merits, but from His sheer will and gratuitous goodness.” — The Bondage of the Will
For Luther, the contingency of grace is the revelation of divine freedom, not its limitation. God acts freely because He is bound only to His own goodness. Grace is not a response to human disposition but the overflow of divine voluntas misericordiae. What seems contingent to us is the historical manifestation of a love that is, in God, eternal and necessary.
In these witnesses—the Gospel, Aquinas, Gregory, and Luther—the same paradox of grace is illuminated from differing angles. The Spirit’s freedom (ubi vult spirat), Aquinas’s libertas donationis, Gregory’s ἐνέργεια σωτήριος, and Luther’s mera voluntas et gratuita bonitas all converge upon one truth: that grace is both free and faithful, contingent in appearance yet necessary in source.
The contingency of grace thus safeguards the transcendence of divine love. Were grace necessary in its distribution, God’s will would be bound by external law; were it arbitrary, His goodness would cease to be intelligible. In reality, divine necessity and freedom coincide: Deus necessario et libere amat. The Spirit manifests this coincidence by translating eternal love into temporal acts of mercy, so that what is necessary in God may become contingent for us—ut amor necessarius Dei contingenter salvet.
Explicatio
In the metaphysical structure developed in the preceding disputation, possibility mediates necessity and contingency. Here, that mediation takes personal and salvific form. Grace is the realization of divine possibility within time—the act whereby God’s eternal necessity expresses itself as temporal mercy.
Divine necessity, rightly understood, is not mechanical determination but the perfect consistency of love with itself. Because God is necessarily good, He necessarily wills to communicate His goodness. Yet the form of this communication is not determined by nature but by freedom. Hence, grace is necessary quoad Deum, contingent quoad creaturam.
This dual aspect explains the paradox of salvation: that it is both divinely willed from eternity and freely bestowed in time. The contingency of grace does not imply arbitrariness but the fittingness (convenientia) of divine wisdom to the diverse conditions of creatures. In the order of the Spirit, grace assumes contingency as its very mode—grace is not an exception to divine order but its most intimate manifestation.
The Spirit, therefore, is the person of contingency in God: not in the sense of mutability, but as the openness of divine love to new relations. As the Father is the source and the Son the expression, the Spirit is the donation—the actuality of possibility, the temporalization of the eternal.
Objectiones
Ob. I. Necessitarianism claims that if grace flows necessarily from the divine nature, then no act of God could fail to bestow it. The contingency of grace would be illusory, for divine will would coincide with natural necessity.
Ob. II. Libertarianism holds that if grace is contingent, then it is arbitrary; divine freedom becomes indistinguishable from caprice, and God’s constancy of love is undermined.
Ob. III. Pelegianism argues that if grace is contingent in its bestowal, then human cooperation can determine its reception. The gift becomes dependent on creaturely conditions rather than divine initiative.
Ob. IV. Modern Determinism supposes that contingency is merely epistemic, a function of our ignorance. From the standpoint of divine omniscience, grace is neither free nor contingent, but eternally fixed in a necessary decree.
Responsiones
Ad I. Divine necessity concerns the actus amoris, not the modus doni. God necessarily loves, but the way in which this love is communicated remains free. The distinction between essence and economy safeguards both necessity and contingency without contradiction.
Ad II. Divine freedom is not indeterminacy but superabundant self-determination. Grace is contingent not because it lacks reason but because its reason lies beyond necessity: ratio doni est bonitas donantis, not the need of the recipient.
Ad III. Human cooperation does not cause grace but manifests it. The contingency of grace includes the contingency of secondary causes; God ordains human response as the created medium through which His free gift becomes visible.
Ad IV. The contingency of grace is ontological, not merely epistemic. From the divine perspective, the act is necessary; from the creaturely perspective, it is free and unforeseen. The one act of God appears under two modalities, necessity and contingency, according to the order of participation.
Nota
Grace is the contingentia caritatis: the form in which divine love enters time. It is the historical mode of that which is metaphysically eternal. The contingency of grace is thus not an imperfection but its splendor—the glory of divine freedom refracted through the prism of created finitude.
The Spirit is the agent of this refracting. As light passing through crystal diversifies without division, so the Spirit distributes grace “as He wills” (1 Cor. 12:11), revealing the inexhaustible creativity of divine necessity. In every contingent act of grace, eternity touches time anew.
Determinatio
Grace proceeds necessarily from the divine essence: God, being Love itself (□G → □L), cannot but communicate Himself; the necessity of grace is identical with the necessity of divine self-diffusion.
The manifestation of grace is contingent: although grace proceeds necessarily in God, its historical and personal appearance (◊Gr ∧ ¬□Gr) depends upon the receptivity of creatures and the divine will’s fitting adaptation to them.
The Holy Spirit mediates between necessity and contingency: in the Spirit, the unchanging love of God becomes freely given gift (□L → ◊Gr), so that divine necessity is expressed as temporal generosity without ceasing to be eternal.
Contingency in grace is not defect but plenitude: it signifies not imperfection but the overflow of infinite love into finite form—the mode by which immutability makes the new possible.
In Christ the logic of grace is fulfilled: the eternally necessary Son (□F) becomes contingently incarnate (◊F), and through this union the necessity of love and the freedom of gift coincide.
Thus, the contingency of grace reveals divine rationality as donation: grace is intelligibility-in-gift, the rational outpouring of necessary love through the Spirit into the ever-new contingencies of creation.
Grace proceeds necessarily from the divine essence: God, being Love itself (□G → □L), cannot but communicate Himself; the necessity of grace is identical with the necessity of divine self-diffusion.
The manifestation of grace is contingent: although grace proceeds necessarily in God, its historical and personal appearance (◊Gr ∧ ¬□Gr) depends upon the receptivity of creatures and the divine will’s fitting adaptation to them.
The Holy Spirit mediates between necessity and contingency: in the Spirit, the unchanging love of God becomes freely given gift (□L → ◊Gr), so that divine necessity is expressed as temporal generosity without ceasing to be eternal.
Contingency in grace is not defect but plenitude: it signifies not imperfection but the overflow of infinite love into finite form—the mode by which immutability makes the new possible.
In Christ the logic of grace is fulfilled: the eternally necessary Son (□F) becomes contingently incarnate (◊F), and through this union the necessity of love and the freedom of gift coincide.
Thus, the contingency of grace reveals divine rationality as donation: grace is intelligibility-in-gift, the rational outpouring of necessary love through the Spirit into the ever-new contingencies of creation.
Transitus ad Disputationem XLVIII: De Fine Creationis et Ordine Amoris
The mystery of grace leads inevitably to the mystery of order. For every gift implies an orientation, and every donation seeks its end. If grace is the contingent manifestation of divine love, then creation itself must be ordered toward love as its final cause.
The next disputation therefore asks how this ordo amoris—the harmony between divine necessity, created freedom, and ultimate purpose—constitutes the final intelligibility of all things. We turn from the contingency of grace to the teleology of love, from donum to finis.
Let us transition then to Disputationem XLVIII: De Fine Creationis et Ordine Amoris, in which we shall demonstrate that love, which is necessary in God and contingent in grace, also pertains to the universal end through which everything returns in the unity of the Spirit.
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