Existence in Grace as Matter of Degree

"For Milbank and Pickstock, the distinction between nature and grace is not one of kind but of degree, in particular, the degree of intensity of participation in the divine. Therefore, it is not the case that nature is an autonomous in-itself to which a relationship to the divine is super-added; rather, nature is always already graced in the sense that it participates in the Creator (BR, 115). It is only insofar as it depends; its being is essentially a gift. Correlatively, insofar as reason is to faith as nature is to grace, the relation (and distinction) must be understood in the same sense: Reason is not an autonomous operation of a pure nature that supernatural faith supplements. Rather, reason is a reception of light, an operation of divine illumination (TA, 11)."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 160