Some Protestants argue against the Catholic belief that grace is given through the sacraments, saying that this takes away from God being the giver of such grace, thereby usurping the glory and sovereignty of God. If it’s the sacraments that give grace, so they argue, then it’s not God.
In response, notice there’s a principle embedded in the objection: whatever God gives, there can be no other who gives it. In other words, an effect cannot be caused by both God and some other thing.
But this is manifestly false, biblically speaking.
Consider, for example, that God is ultimately the one who gives truth. Yet, he commands the apostles to go and teach truth (Matt. 28:20). Likewise, God is ultimately the source of physical healings, yet he empowers Peter to heal a paralytic (Acts 3:7).
A second response is that the sacraments, and the use of sensible words and things, no more take away from God’s sovereignty than Jesus’ use of material things to bring about physical healings do.
Consider, for example, Mark 7:31-36. We’re told that Jesus “put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue,” and upon saying to the man, “be opened,” the deaf man was healed.
Another example is Jesus’ healing of the blind man in John 9:1-11. There, Jesus mixes his spit with clay from the ground and puts it on the man’s eyes, telling him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam.
Notice that in both these examples Jesus uses material stuff (his spit, clay, water, etc.) and touch of the body to bring about the healing. In these instances, matter and touch are vehicles or instruments for the administering of physical healing. Jesus didn’t need these things. Yet, he still used them. If Jesus saw it fitting to use matter and touch of the body to bring about physical healing, then it’s reasonable to think that he would see it fitting to do the same for spiritual healing, like in the Sacraments.
Jesus isn’t confined to operating merely in the spiritual realm. Rather, he incorporates the material world, which includes our bodies, into the spiritual realm. And this provides biblical grounds at least for the sacrament principle: the use of matter and physical touch to communicate grace, which in no way usurps God’s sovereignty.
***This article was originally published in the Indulgence column of Catholic Answers Magazine Online on November 15, 2024.