A Brief Meditation on Grace

One prevalent understanding of divine grace in mainstream American Christian culture pits it explicitly or implicitly against "good works." In contrast, Dallas Willard used to say, "Grace is opposed to earning, but not to effort," and even many Protestant thinkers now have followed suit in describing the grace of God as much more comprehensive than the old formula "unmerited favor." That phrase implies nothing of the rigorous, cooperative labor to which scripture so often exhorts us, and it falls short of characterizing the full life, energy, and activity of our God Who provides much more than a sort of cosmic "thumbs-up" to draw us further into union with Him. 

There are more and better ways of discussing this topic, I know, and many wise and learned people (among whom I would never count myself) have written about it to better effect. Still, I offer below a little analogy that has helped me somewhat in adjusting my own understanding, both conceptually and practically.

Imagine you are a little engine (perhaps Doubting Thomas the Train), and suppose, as I have suggested, that grace is something like energy (in the broadest sense--the energy that ultimately constitutes the material world of which you are made, and the energy that fuels your capacity to function at every level). Imagine too that the fuel upon which you were designed to function makes you stronger, more efficient, more beautiful the longer you use it. In fact, the proper fuel will actually refine and transform you into true engine-hood (i.e. full humanity)!  

When you use inappropriate substitutes, you become weaker, uglier, and more dysfunctional; indeed, even your ability to make use of the proper fuel is hindered as a consequence. It would be absurd for you, little engine, to think that either what you are or what you do can be meaningfully credited to your self as some uniquely creative self-sufficient entity. No, obviously you owe all that to God. On the other hand, it would be equally absurd to think that this ultimate and complete dependence on the Divine Energy implies that you cannot make free, concerted efforts to secure and run upon only the proper fuel, or that you could not do the reverse--that is, inure yourself to damaging synthetic substances that restrict, disintegrate, and destroy your engine. Clearly you, the conscious discerning Thomas the Train, must choose, must cooperate. That cooperation (perhaps we could also call it obedience) is what I call faith.

So when I read St. Paul's words, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them," I hear God saying (in this context): "You are made a true engine by using the proper fuel, which I have provided and for which I designed you, owing none of that to yourself so you best shut your little toot-horn."

This is my (very rough) understanding of grace and sanctification (or deification), which is to say, the course of salvation. We are invited to work hard, to work full time--throughout and to the end of our lives to train our existence--our bodies, minds, and souls--to run on the grace of God, He Who is Love, He Who supplies "all [our] needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus."