Whether Sanctifying Grace = {Faith, Hope, Charity}?
The Catholic Encyclopedia argues against the identity of grace and charity, saying that “sanctifying grace informs and transforms the substance of the soul; charity supernaturally informs and influences the will.” But what is a human being if not a union of the will, the intellect, and the (bodily) powers? It stands to reason that grace is identical to the union of the three theological virtues, uplifting them into deiformity but without changing human nature. In other words, faith, hope, and charity remain accidental qualities within the soul. The good habits that are attendant on grace and on the nature thus uplifted are the standard moral and intellectual virtues which may be inflused rather than acquired and the gifts perfecting them still further.
This account also explains how grace can be lost as a result of a mortal sin. The virtuous habits guiding a person’s actions in the state of grace disappear along with faith, hope, and charity if any of the latter is lost.
Consider also that a person’s nature is destroyed in hell; a person’s grace can be destroyed in this life throwing him back into unaided nature, both through sin; and, if you’ll let me speculate, a person’s glory can, too, be destroyed through a kind of heavenly sin which is dissatisfaction with his reward. In the latter case, I suppose, he might be reincarnated, and a life of grace for him, guaranteed.