This is a more plausible view than the one we have examined a little farther up, and it can claim the authority of Scripture, which, though it occasionally identifies the effects of grace and charity, always clearly distinguishes the underlying habits. Cfr. 2 Cor. XIII, 13: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the charity of God.”(1015) 1 Tim. I 14: “The grace of our Lord hath abounded exceedingly with faith and love.”(1016) Furthermore, “regeneration” and “new-creation” in Biblical usage affect not only the faculties of the soul, but its substance. Finally, many councils consistently distinguish between _gratia_ and _caritas_ (_dona_, _virtutes_)—a distinction which has almost the force of a proof that grace and charity are not the same thing.(1017) These councils cannot have had in mind a purely virtual distinction, because theological love presupposes sanctifying grace in exactly the same manner as a faculty presupposes a substance or nature in which it exists. The Roman Catechism expressly designates the theological virtues as “concomitants of grace.”(1018) The question nevertheless remains an open one, as neither party can fully establish its claim, and the Church has never rendered an official decision either one way or the other.(1019) 4. SANCTIFYING GRACE A PARTICIPATION OF THE SOUL IN THE DIVINE NATURE.—The highest and at the same time the most profound conception of sanctifying grace is that it is a real, though of course only accidental and analogical, participation of the soul in the nature of God. That sanctifying grace makes us “partakers of the divine nature” is of faith, but the manner in which it effects this participation admits of different explanations. a) The fact itself can be proved from Sacred Scripture. Cfr. 2 Pet. I, 4: “By whom [Christ] He [the Father] hath given us great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature.”(1020) To this text may be added all those which affirm the regeneration of the soul in God, because regeneration, being a new birth, must needs impart to the regenerate the nature of his spiritual progenitor. Cfr. John I, 13: “Who are born, not of blood, ... but of God.”(1021) John III, 5: “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.”(1022) St. James I, 18: “For of his own will hath he begotten us by the word of truth.”(1023) 1 John III, 9: “Whosoever is born of God, committeth no sin.”(1024)