divine sonship, the beatific vision) ontologically exceed the bounds of
nature. Considered as purely gratuitous favors, they are negatively and
positively undeserved. The grace involved in creation, for instance, is
not conferred on some existing beneficiary, but actually produces its
recipient. The creation itself, therefore, being entirely _gratis data_,
all that succeeds it, supernatural grace included, must be negatively
undeserved, in as far as it was not necessary for the recipient to exist
at all. But the supernatural graces are _indebitae_ also positively,
_i.e._ positing the creation, because they transcend every creatural claim
and power. Both elements are contained in the above-quoted letter of the
African bishops to Pope Innocent I: "Though it may be said in a certain
legitimate sense, that we were created by the grace of God, ... that is a
different grace by which we are called predestined, by which we are
justified, and by which we receive eternal beatitude."(11) Of this
last-mentioned grace (_i.e._ grace in the strictly supernatural sense),
St. Augustine says: "This, the grace which Catholic bishops are wont to
read in the books of God and preach to their people, and the grace which
the Apostle commends, is not that by which we are created as men, but that
by which as sinful men we are justified."(12) In other words, natural is
opposed to supernatural grace in the same way that nature is opposed to
the supernatural. "[To believe] is the work of grace, not of nature. It
is, I say, the work of grace, which the second Adam brought us, not of
nature, which Adam wholly lost in himself."(13) Adding the new note
obtained by this analysis we arrive at the following definition: Grace is
a gratuitous _super-natural_ gift.(14)

3. THE GRACE OF GOD AND THE GRACE OF CHRIST.--Though all supernatural
graces are from God, a distinction is made between the "grace of God" and
the "grace of Christ." The difference between them is purely accidental,
based on the fact that the "grace of Christ" flows exclusively from the
merits of the atonement.

a) The following points may serve as criteria to distinguish the two
notions:

A) The _gratia Dei_ springs from divine benevolence and presupposes a
recipient who is unworthy merely in a negative sense (=not worthy, _non
dignus_), whereas the _gratia Christi_ flows from mercy and benevolence
and is conferred on a recipient who is positively unworthy (_indignus_).

B) The _gratia