De gratia Redemptoris

In this question we suppose that every supernatural act of virtue in the just is meritorious; it is only asked whether the increase of grace which a man has merited for himself by such acts is conferred immediately after the merit. For there are some theologians who think that this increase is had at once only if the man is disposed to receive it. This view seems to have arisen chiefly from what St Thomas says in 1, 2 q. 114 a. 8 ad 3. According to some, that disposition is then present in a man if the act of virtue is equally or more intense than the habit of grace; others think that the increase of grace which a man has merited for himself by remiss acts is given only in the other life.

In the sources of revelation nothing is found for this view. The increase of a supernatural habit must not be compared simply with the increase of a natural habit, in which the act itself as a physical cause contributes to the increase of the habit. But this in no way obtains in the meritorious work in relation to the supernatural habit; rather, God works the increase of the habit physically, and indeed as a reward, a retribution. But no reason appears why God cannot and will not give such an increase as a reward if the meritorious act is less intense. In this view there seems to be insufficient attention to the great difference which exists between disposition and merit. Altogether, therefore, preference is to be given to the view which says that the increase of grace is always conferred immediately after the meritorious act, even if that act is less intense. The Council of Trent says simply that the just grow in the justice received through good works, through the observance of the commandments, that they go from virtue to virtue, are renewed from day to day, nor does it ever indicate that they do not grow in justice unless their acts are equally or more intense than the habit.

There are those who say that at least for practice the former view is safer; for they think there is a danger that a man find himself deceived in the judgment, when he believes that through all those acts he has acquired an increase of grace which nevertheless he does not obtain. This could perhaps be said if that view had foundations in the sources of revelation. But since these are not found, neither is that danger present. For what was said before holds in this place too: if a greater intensity of the act were a condition as necessary as is affirmed, God would have made this clear.

But since merit grows with the goodness of the act, the faithful are to be exhorted to ever greater fervour, not indeed that they may merit the increase of grace altogether, but that they may have greater merit and be more pleasing to God.

The question could still be touched on in this place, whether the meritorious act must proceed from actual grace; but it seems better to speak of this matter in the fourth part, where the nature of actual grace is treated.

Objections

Very many objections of the innovators against the Catholic doctrine on merit are found in St Bellarmine, De iustificatione, lib. 5.

1. When eternal life is called a reward in Sacred Scripture, this is not to be understood in the proper sense but in a figurative one; for eternal life is called an inheritance; but an inheritance is not a reward; for it is due to sons because they are sons, not because they merited it by their labours.

I answer. “Since in the Scriptures eternal life is called a reward no less often, perhaps even more often, than an inheritance, how will Calvin prove that it must be called an inheritance properly and a reward improperly, and not rather the contrary, a reward properly and an inheritance improperly? Then, what if both can be said properly? For eternal life has the character of a reward and of an inheritance. For it is given by promise to those who labour, which is proper to a reward; and it is not given except to sons, which is proper to an inheritance”¹

“But if an inheritance is due to sons because they are sons, what need is there to labour to obtain it?

The answer is ready to hand: for although eternal life is given to little children who die soon after baptism by the title of inheritance alone, nevertheless God willed that his sons who have the use of reason should acquire it by their own labours and merits, so that eternal life should be due to them on a double title, namely the title of inheritance and the right of reward; for since it is more honourable to have something by merit than by mere donation, God, in order the more to honour his sons, granted them this besides, that they should procure eternal life for themselves by merits. For the glory of his body and the exaltation of his name were due to Christ himself by this very fact, that he was the Son of God; and yet because he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, therefore God exalted him and gave him a name which is above every name. To pass over for the present the fact that to the merits of works there is rendered some degree of eternal glory, which those who rejoice in the title of inheritance alone do not attain”²

2. From Matth 25 (possess the kingdom... for I was hungry) merit is not proved. For “‘for’ does not state a cause, but only an order and consequence: God willed that the works of mercy should first be done by the elect, and that the kingdom should afterwards be obtained by them” (Calvin).

I answer. Whether “for” can sometimes indicate only order, I pass over; certainly it can also signify causality. That it is to be understood thus in this place is plain a) from the parallel member: Go, you cursed, into eternal fire, for I was hungry and you gave me not to eat... But no one says that here only order is indicated and not causality; b) from the fact that in other places the attainment of glory is attributed to the works themselves (cf. the texts cited in the argument).

3. Ps 102, 4: “Who (the Lord) crowneth thee in mercy and compassion”; therefore not on account of merit, out of justice.

I answer. Beatitude is attributed to mercy “not because it is not a true reward of merit, but because the merits themselves have been given out of mercy. For a man cannot do meritorious works unless he has first been justified. But he is justified not from works, but from grace and mercy. Wherefore St Augustine too is accustomed to distinguish thus, saying that to justice itself eternal life is a reward, not a grace; but to the man himself it is a grace, not a reward, since to man justice is a grace”³

4. Luc 17, 10: “When you shall have done all the things that are commanded you, say: We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which we ought to do”. Therefore merit does not arise from works.

I answer. “As St Augustine expounds, serm. 3 de verbis Domini, we can be called unprofitable servants when we have kept all the divine commandments, since we do nothing beyond what we owe, and could ask nothing from it as a just reward, unless God had willed to make a liberal covenant with us. For by our condition we are the slaves of God, and if he wills, he can bind us to all works whatever that please him without any reward. This condition of ours, then, Christ wills us to acknowledge in order to preserve humility. Although by the gratuitous covenant which he deigned to make with us, we can say with the Apostle: There is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the just judge will render to me in that day. For the Lord himself also says: Didst thou not agree with me for a penny? Take what is thine and go. O great, says Augustine, is the goodness of God: when by our condition we owe him obedience as servants to a lord, he promises us the rewards of friendship, so that he may extort from us the service of due servitude”⁴

5. Rom 6, 23 says: “For the wages of sin is death, but the grace of God is life everlasting”, and it does not say: the wages of good works is eternal life; therefore eternal life is not the object of merit.

I answer. “St Augustine diligently solves this argument in epist. 105, in the Enchiridion cap. 107, and especially in the book De gratia et libero arbitrio cap. 8 and 9. But he says two things. First, that the Apostle could rightly have said, the wages of justice is eternal life, as he said, the wages of sin is death. And this confession of St Augustine utterly cuts the throat of the adversaries' case. Secondly, that it was not said, the wages of justice is eternal life, as the wages of sin is death, lest anyone should think that we have justice from ourselves as we have sins from ourselves. And so eternal life is called a grace, not because it is not the reward of merit, but because we have the merits themselves from grace”⁵

6. A great injury is done to Christ if anything is attributed to our merits, as though the merits of Christ were not sufficient.

I answer. “The more rhetorically, or rather tragically, the adversaries amplify this argument, the more empty it is found to be when it is discussed. For the merits of the just are not opposed to the merits of Christ, but are born from them, and whatever praise the merits of the just have, all of it redounds to the praise of the merits of Christ. For he is the vine, we the branches; and as the branch cannot bear fruit unless it abide in the vine, so neither can we do anything without Christ. And as no one was ever so foolish as to say that the glory of the vine is diminished if its branches bear much fruit, so no one, unless plainly foolish, can say that the glory of Christ is diminished if his servants, through his grace, through his spirit, through the faith and charity inspired by him, do good works which are so truly just that a crown of justice is owed to them by a just judge.

But, they say, if the merits of men are required, then the merits of Christ were not sufficient.

It is not so. For the merits of men are not required because the merits of Christ are insufficient, but because of their very great efficacy. For the works of Christ merited before God not only that we should obtain salvation, but also that we should obtain it through our own merits. Or, what is the same, they merited for us not only eternal salvation but also the power of meriting...

But at least, they say, glory is divided between God and man, if we attain salvation not by his merits alone but also by our own.

Nor is that true. For our merits are the gifts of Christ. And although in the good work which we do with God's help nothing is ours that is not God's, nor is anything God's that is not ours, but God does the whole and man does the whole: yet the reason why that work is worthy of eternal life depends entirely on grace. Finally, we are no less bound to Christ, nor do we refer our salvation whole and entire to him any the less, when we acquire it by our own merits, than if we received it without any merits of ours; indeed we confess ourselves much more his debtors now, since we are saved not only through his grace, but are saved through it in a most noble and most honourable manner”⁶

7. Rom 8, 18: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us”. Therefore St Paul denies the condignity of works with future glory.

I answer. The Greek text has οὐκ ἄξια, that is, “they are not weighty”, if they are compared with future glory⁷; the discourse is not about the condignity by which some work is meritorious of condignity.

In substance the same is found in St Bellarmine⁸: “For the Apostle speaks of the substance of the works themselves, not of an absolute proportion. For the sufferings of this time are brief, that glory is eternal; yet there is a proportion between these sufferings and that glory, on account of the dignity of the charity from which they proceed. For the passion of Christ too was much briefer than the eternal punishments of the damned, and yet on account of the dignity of the person suffering it was most worthy to satisfy most justly for those punishments. And the delights of sinners are incomparably less than the torments of hell, and yet on account of contempt of God they are most worthy to be punished with those torments.⁹ And the seed is much smaller, as regards bulk, than the tree itself; and yet there is so great a proportion between the seed and the tree that by a kind of natural justice the tree is owed to the seed rightly sown. And so blessed Paul says indeed in 2 Cor 4 that the sufferings of this time are momentary and light, if they are compared with the weight of eternal glory which we await, and yet he adds that these same momentary and light sufferings work the weight of eternal glory; but he understands them to work it without doubt not physically but morally, that is, not efficiently but meritoriously, and by this very fact to be worthy that that glory, however great and eternal, be attributed to them by a just judgment”.

Similarly St Thomas¹⁰: “The meritorious work of man can be considered in two ways: in one way according as it proceeds from free will; in another way according as it proceeds from the grace of the Holy Spirit. If it be considered according to the substance of the work and according as it proceeds from free will, then there cannot be condignity there on account of the greatest inequality; but there is congruity on account of a certain equality of proportion. For it seems congruous that to a man working according to his own power God should recompense according to the excellence of his power. But if we speak of the meritorious work according as it proceeds from the grace of the Holy Spirit, then it is meritorious of eternal life by condignity. For thus the value of the merit is attended to according to the power of the Holy Spirit moving us to eternal life, according to that of Ioannis 4: He shall become in him a fountain of water springing up unto life everlasting. The price of the work is attended to also according to the dignity of grace, through which man, made a partaker of the divine nature, is adopted as a son of God, to whom an inheritance is due from the very right of adoption, according to that of Rom 8: If sons, then heirs.”

8. In this doctrine God would be a debtor to man; but this is impossible; therefore.

I answer with St Augustine: “The Lord made himself a debtor, not by receiving, but by promising”¹¹. — Bellarmine: “A promise made with the condition of a work not only makes the thing promised due — for he who has promised is bound by justice to stand by his promises — but also brings it about that he who has fulfilled the work is said to have merited the thing promised and to be able to demand it as a reward by his own right”¹².