β) From what we have said it follows that there must be at least a physical contrariety between grace and sin. The difference between physical and metaphysical opposition may be illustrated by the example of fire and water. These two elements are incompatible by a law of nature. But as there is no metaphysical contradiction between them, Almighty God could conceivably bring them together. It is this physical kind of opposition that Suarez and a few of his followers assume to exist between grace and sin. Absolutely speaking, they say, there is no intrinsic contradiction in the assumption that God could preserve the physical entity of sanctifying grace in a soul guilty of mortal sin.(967) In so far as this school admits the existence of an internal opposition, which actually prevents original or mortal sin from ever co-existing in the soul with justifying grace, its teaching may be said to be acceptable to all Catholic theologians. The Scotistic view, on account of its incompatibility with the teaching of the Tridentine Council, is no longer held. It may be questioned, however, whether Suarez goes far enough in this matter, and whether the opposition between grace and sin could really be overcome by a miracle. The simultaneous co-existence of grace and sin seems to involve an absolute, _i.e._ metaphysical, contradiction. γ) This is what the Thomists maintain with the majority of Jesuit theologians.(968) As some subtle objections have been raised against this view, it cannot be accepted as theologically certain; but it undoubtedly corresponds better than its opposite to the spirit and letter of Scripture. The Bible, as we have already pointed out, likens the opposition existing between grace and sin to that between life and death,(969) justice and injustice, Christ and Belial, God and an idol.(970) But these are contradictories, _ergo_.(971) The same conclusion can be reached by arguing from the character of sanctifying grace as a _participatio divinae naturae_.(972) If grace is a participation in the divine nature, it must be opposed to sin in the same way in which God Himself is opposed to it. Now God as the All-Holy One is metaphysically opposed to sin; consequently, the same kind of opposition must exist between sanctifying grace and sin. It is alleged against this teaching that between habitual grace and habitual sin there is merely a disparate opposition, _i.e._ that of a physical to a moral form, the concepts of which are not mutually exclusive. But sanctifying grace is more than a physical ornament of the soul; it is an ethical form which has for its essential function to render the soul holy and righteous in the sight of God.(973) READINGS:—St. Thomas, _Summa Theol._, 1a 2ae, qu. 113, and the commentators, especially Billuart, _De Gratia_, diss. 7, art. 1 sqq.; *Bellarmine, _De Iustificatione_, l. II (_Opera Omnia_, ed. Fèvre, Vol. VI, pp. 208 sqq., Paris 1873).