Annotation XL

”Every good tree makes good fruits; but a bad tree makes bad fruits.” — Matthew 7:17

Whether all works apart from grace are sins.

Gen. 8; Isa. 9, 53.

John Ferus [Johann Wild], in the first book of [his] commentaries on Matthew, narrating this passage, uses these words: “From this it follows that no work is good and pleasing to God apart from faith; nay, only the faithful do good works. The reason is that, without faith and grace, a man is nothing but an unfruitful and bad tree, and therefore cannot bear good fruits. The virtues of the philosophers, therefore, are not good — because, although they have the appearance of good, they do not come forth from a good tree; for they proceeded either from love or hope of praise, or from fear of blame. And not only can our nature not bear good fruits without grace, but it also produces bad ones — according to that [saying], ‘The sense and thought of man is prone to evil’; likewise, ‘All are hypocrites, and every mouth has spoken lying’; likewise, ‘All are vain, vain their works, and all their counsels vain’; likewise, ‘We have all erred, everyone into his own way,’ etc. You see, therefore, that whatever is done apart from faith is not merely not-good, but evil.”

These words of Ferus are similar and akin to the words often repeated by the same author in his commentary on John, and in the book of Annotations which Dominic Soto published against Ferus, with [certain passages] noted and condemned — which indeed are found in the places [treated] below. In the explanation of that saying of John, from the first chapter, “the life was the light of men,” he says: “Reason is indeed a light given by God, by which we know that good is to be done and evil fled; yet for the most part — nay, always — it is deceived in [its] choice, unless the divine light be present. We are admonished, therefore, by this word, that we should obey not our reason, but the word of God, which is the true light.” Likewise, on that [verse] of the same chapter, “Who [are born] not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,” etc.: “By this word, therefore,” he says, “he condemns wholly the old birth, and thereby also all the powers of nature, which by [their] natural [all the powers of nature] which by their natural propagation are transfused into [their] offspring.

Again, on that [verse], “Of whose fullness we have all received,” these things are read written:¹ “Accursed are not only the things which we do, but also the things which are done in us; accursed is the thought of our heart, [our] reason, mouth, hands, feet; accursed to us are all contingent things, whether joyful or sad. Hence it is that in joys we swell up, in sorrows we are broken and despair.”

And below, on the words “The Law was given through Moses,” it is written thus: “Although the Law itself is good in itself, yet if grace be not present, it produces nothing but hypocrites.”

Again, on that [verse] of John 3, “The Light came into the world,” etc.: “Christ,” he says, “first makes manifest that all our things are mere darkness and sins.”

These, and passages of this kind of this author, Dominic Soto judges are to be avoided, because they seem to favor the Lutheran heretics — who teach that human nature, without the special help of justifying grace, can choose and do nothing but evil, and on that account that all the actions of unbelievers, and even their very virtues, are sins; and that all the works of Christians, however good, are — if they be done without the good of a special gratifying grace — evil and hypocritical. But this error the holy Synod of Trent detests, in the sixth session, canon seven, in these words: “If anyone shall say that all works which are done before justification, in whatever manner they be done, are sins — or that the more vehemently one strives to dispose himself for grace, the more gravely he sins — let him be anathema.”

Michael Medina, in the Apology which he wrote in defense of Ferus, defending these opinions against Soto’s censures, says: first, that the author, when he said that works done without grace are evil and sins, did not have regard to the dogma of the Lutherans, but to the phrase and manner of speaking customary with the ancient fathers — who called all works done apart from the help of divine grace not merely “not good,” but very frequently termed [them] “evils,” “vices,” “sins,” and “darkness” — not that they believed them truly and simply evil and sins, but because they knew that these [works] neither avail for acquiring Christian righteousness, nor conduce to obtaining the good of eternal happiness, and on that account did not deign to reckon them among good [works]. Likewise he says that what was said by Ferus — that all things done by us, and in us, are “accursed and damned” — is not to be so understood as if he thought that all things done naturally by the judgment of right reason are outrages worthy of damnation and cursing; but is to be interpreted of the affections, passions, and propensities to evils, arising from the impulse of our corrupt nature. By which form of speech the Apostle said,² “I know that there dwells not in me — that is, in my flesh — any good; but sin dwells in me.” In like manner, [as to] what the author says — that without divine help the human intellect can neither know the good, nor the will choose the good — he wishes it to be expounded not of the moral and human good, which is subject to our knowledge and choice,

but of the highest and everlasting good — which without the revelation of the divine light cannot be known and chosen — under that aspect by which it is the goal of the beatitude to be hoped for, and the way of the spiritual life leading to eternal happiness. See Annotation 255 of this book.