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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Actual Grace |
 | | Grace (gratia, Charis), in general, is a supernatural gift of God to intellectual creatures (men, angels) for their eternal salvation, whether the latter be furthered and attained through salutary acts or a state of holiness. |
 | | It is called a "help of God for salutary acts", because, on the one hand, it differs from permanent sanctifying grace, in that it consists only in a passing influence of God on the soul, and, on the other, it is destined only for actions which have a necessary relation to man's eternal salvation. |
 | | The necessity of the physical causality of grace, as is readily seen, is nowise dependent on the existence of concupiscence, but remains just as imperative for our first parents in their state of innocence and for the angels subject to no evil tendency. |
| www.newadvent.org /cathen/06689x.htm (13012 words) |
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