PART TWO: THE EXISTENTIAL STATES OF GRACE

V. The first existential state: the earthly paradise or the state of Adam

1. The existential states of grace. —2. The first proclamation of the Judaeo-Christian revelation was an answer to the problem of evil. —3. God could have created man in the state of pure nature, that is in a tragic and divided state. —4. In fact, he created him in a state of harmony. —5. Invisible supernatural gifts and visible preternatural ones. —6. Physiological state of the first man. —7. Era of religion without intermediary. —8. The age of Adam's grace the age of the Father. —9. Myths of a 'golden age'. —10. Effects of the fall. —11. The window in Sens cathedral. —12. The fall permitted in order to replace Adam's grace in the universe of creation by Christian grace in the universe of redemption. —13. Christ's universe better than that of the first Adam.

VI. The second existential state: Christian grace 'by anticipation' under the law of nature and under the Mosaic law

1. The breakdown of Adam's grace. —2. Recapitulation of the universe of Christ and Christian grace by anticipation. —3. Grace under the regime of the law of nature. —4. Outward forms of worship. —5. Holiness always possible under the law of nature. —6. Sporadic mediation of prophecy and mediation of the sacraments. —7. The forces of evil. —8. Grace under the Mosaic law. —9. Continuity of prophecy and divine institution of the sacrament. —10. The same grace orientates Jews and Gentiles towards Christ. —11. Christianity existed in an initial state before Christ. —12. Christ's cross threw its shadow over the world from the time of the fall. — 13. It is Christian grace that is offered to children at the dawning of their moral life.

VII. The third existential state: Christian grace by derivation

1. The age of Christ's presence: the entire Church gathered up in the Virgin Mary. —2. The age of the Holy Ghost- Christian grace by derivation. —3. Derivation by contact and at a distance. —4. The mystery of derivation by contact. —5. Grace that is fully Christian is the condition for a more intimate mode of indwelling by the divine Persons. —6. With fullness of mediation appears fullness of grace. —7. The graces of contact come to us through the hierarchy. —8. Christian grace is orientated. —9. It is sacramental.

VIII. The fourth and fifth existential states: Uncovenanted Christian graces. Beatifying and transfiguring grace

1. The apostles had to take to the ends of the earth the graces of contact that constitute the Church in her completed state. —2. Resistance of the powers of evil: these are active even within Christians. —3. Pre-Christian religion. —4. Judaism. —5. Islam. —6. Dissident sects. —7. The world of atheism. —8. Uncovenanted Christian graces. —9. The Church shares in their distribution. —10. They constitute the Church in an initial and restricted state. —11. A few examples: from India. —12. From Judaism. —13. From Islam. —14. The different erroneous religions form round the Church zones less and less favorable to the penetration of Christian grace. —15. Is the distinction between graces of contact and graces at a distance to persist to the end of time? —16. Final existential state of Christian grace: beatifying and transfiguring grace.

 








     

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