The Calvinist doctrine known as irresistible grace states that, since all persons are by nature spiritually dead, no one desires to accept this grace until God spiritually enlivens them by means of regeneration. Calvinists emphasize "the utter helplessness of people apart from grace." But God reaches out with "first grace" or " prevenient grace". Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Protestants agree that faith is a gift from God, as in Ephesians 2:8: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God." Lutherans hold that the means of grace are "the gospel in Word and sacraments." That the sacraments are means of grace is also the teaching of John Wesley, who described the Eucharist as "the grand channel whereby the grace of his Spirit was conveyed to the souls of all the children of God". Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them." The Sacred Mysteries (sacraments) are seen as a means of partaking of divine grace because God works through his Church.
The question of the means of grace has been called "the watershed that divides Catholicism from Protestantism, Calvinism from Arminianism, modern theological liberalism from theological conservatism." The Catholic Church holds that it is because of the action of Christ and the Holy Spirit in transforming into the divine life what is subjected to God's power that "the sacraments confer the grace they signify": "the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through, independently of the personal holiness of the minister.
Īs an attribute of God it manifests most in the salvation of sinners and Western Christianity holds that the initiative in the relationship of grace between God and an individual is always on the side of God. Among Eastern Christians generally, grace is considered to be the partaking of the Divine Nature described in 2 Peter 1:4 and grace is the working of God himself, not a created substance of any kind that can be treated like a commodity.
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, grace is the uncreated Energies of God. It is understood by Western Christians to be a spontaneous gift from God to people – "generous, free and totally unexpected and undeserved" – that takes the form of divine favor, love, clemency, and a share in the divine life of God. In Western Christian theology, grace is created by God who gives it as help to one because God desires one to have it, not necessarily because of anything one has done to earn it.
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