β) Catholic theologians are unanimous in admitting that all salutary acts are and must needs be supernatural; but they differ in their conception of this supernatural quality (_supernaturalitas_). The problem underlying this difference of opinion may be stated thus: A thing may be supernatural either entitatively, _quoad substantiam_, or merely as to the manner of its existence, _quoad modum_. The _supernaturale quoad substantiam_ is divided into the strictly supernatural and the merely preternatural.(286) The question is: To what category of the supernatural belong the salutary acts which man performs by the aid of grace? Undoubtedly there are actual graces which are entitatively natural, _e.g._ the purely mediate grace of illumination,(287) the natural graces conferred in the pure state of nature, the actual graces of the sensitive sphere,(288) and the so-called _cogitatio congrua_ of Vasquez.(289) The problem therefore narrows itself down to the _immediate_ graces of intellect and will. Before the Tridentine Council theologians contented themselves with acknowledging the divinely revealed fact that these graces are supernatural; it was only after the Council that they began to speculate on the precise character of this _supernaturalitas_. Some, following the teaching of the Scotist school, ascribed the supernatural character of salutary acts to their free acceptation on the part of God, holding them to be purely natural in their essence and raised to the supernatural sphere merely _per denominationem extrinsecam_.(290) This view is untenable. For if nature, as such, possessed the intrinsic power to perform salutary acts, irrespective of their acceptation by God, the Fathers and councils would err in teaching that this power is derived from the immediate graces of illumination and strengthening.(291) Others hold that the salutary acts which grace enables man to perform, are supernatural only _quoad modum_; because while it is the Holy Ghost Himself who incites the natural faculties to salutary thoughts and good resolves, He does not _eo ipso_ raise these thoughts and resolves to the supernatural plane. This theory, besides being open to the same objection which we have urged against the first, involves another difficulty. If all salutary acts were supernatural only _quoad modum_, sanctifying grace, which is as certainly supernatural in its essence as the beatific vision of God,(292) would cease to have an adequate purpose; for the intrinsic reason for its existence is precisely that it raises the nature of the justified into a permanent supernatural state of being.