De gratia Redemptoris

The first sanctifying grace is not the object of merit, but only the increase of grace; for as long as a man is without sanctifying grace he is unjust, a sinner, and as such he cannot have merit of condignity before God. But a similar reasoning does not hold in relation to heavenly glory. Moreover, in Sacred Scripture eternal life is simply proposed as a reward, as the object of the merit of the just, and not merely as its increase. Hence many theologians hold that the first glory itself is given not by the title of inheritance alone but also by the title of merit. So Suárez¹, Vázquez² and others. De Lugo³, Ripalda⁴ and others deny it, according to whom the first glory is given by the title of inheritance alone.

Some think that the solution of the question depends on the view whether the last act disposing to justification proceeds effectively from sanctifying grace or not⁵, and that only on the former supposition can the first glory be said to be the object of merit. St Bellarmine, however, shows that the solution cannot be derived from that, but from the question whether one and the same thing can be due on various titles, which must certainly be affirmed. Thus the glory of the body was due to Christ by reason of the hypostatic union, and was also the object of merit. “But if it be granted, which is what we contend for, and what St Thomas teaches in 3 Sent. dist. 18 quaest. 1 art. 5, that one and the same thing can be due on various titles, without doubt that last disposition, continued after the infusion of grace, will be meritorious of eternal life, as St Thomas confirms in 1, 2 quaest. 112 art. 2 ad 1”⁶. Whether this view can appeal to the Council of Trent, which says that eternal life and the increase of glory are objects of merit, is not certain, since in the history of this definition it does not appear that the council wished to touch or to define this question.