Summa Theologiae Moralis, vol. I: De Principiis

S. Th. I-II, q. 114, a. 1, 2, 3, 4.

194. Thesis. For the supernatural condign merit of eternal life itself, seven conditions are required: A. On the part of the work or act, that it be

1. voluntary and free, and indeed freely elective, i. e., not only free from coercion but also from intrinsic necessity (cf. prop. 3 of Jansenius condemned): for merit is the property of a moral act, which is the more moral the more voluntary and free it is. Moreover, retribution is not owed to anyone, except because he himself contributes from his own in service of the one rewarding; but no one properly contributes from his own except that of which he is the master; and man is not the master of his act except the one he freely does;

2. good or honest (Mt. VI, 1 sq.) at least formally, for with God infinitely holy nothing is worthy of reward except what is good and right; for the rest, if evil merits anything, it is not reward but punishment;

3. supernatural and therefore placed from grace, otherwise it would not be proportioned to a supernatural reward of eternal life (C. Trid. sess. 6, c. 16);

4. likewise done in service of God the supernatural end, otherwise there would be no reason why retribution should be expected from God himself: it is, however, done in service of God inasmuch as it is referred to and commanded by charity toward God. Cf. I Cor. II, 9; X, 31; Col. III, 17; Mt. X, 39-42; XIX, 29; Mc. IX, 40; Lc. IX, 48, Gal. V, 6, 14; — S. Th. I-II, q. 114, a. 4.

B. On the part of the one working:

5. the state of wayfarer: for he who has reached the end and goal and possesses it can no longer move himself toward it or tend toward it or approach it more; therefore he cannot merit it. The state of the way has its end with temporal life, as we know with certitude from revelation, and from the faith of the universal Church (II Cor. V, 10; Hebr. IX, 27; Mt. XXV, 1 sq.; Ioh. IX, 4; Lc. XVI, 9, 22; Gal. VI, 10);

6. the state of grace (props. 12, 15, 17, 18 of Baius condemned; C. Araus. II, can. 18; C. Trid. sess. 6, c. 16, can. 32): for the value and dignity of the work is chiefly from the dignity of the one working (Gen. IV, 4); if therefore he himself is not worthy of eternal life through habitual sanctifying grace, he is not fit to place works worthy of eternal life (Ioh. XV, 4).

C. On the part of God rewarding:

7. the acceptance or pre-ordination of the work as reward, and as it were a promise, at least implicitly contained in the bestowal of grace. Not that the good work has intrinsic value or condignity from this acceptance, but because beyond the condignity which it has from grace, an ordination or promise of accepting merits and of giving back a reward is necessary, in order that he who from grace has worked well may have a right to the reward and God may be obliged to render it to him from justice. Among men no one from justice is bound to reward a service, however worthy of price, unless he has accepted it and thus has taken on at least tacitly the obligation of rewarding. But acceptance is required much more on the part of God, who of himself is not obliged by any works of men to give back a reward, both because our services are already owed to him, since they are his, and because they confer no profit of utility, and because we have every power of operating and the very act of our operation from God; therefore in no way can God be our debtor. But, with the ordination or promise added, he is already debtor of himself, and is bound not toward us but toward himself, inasmuch as he owes to his own wisdom, fidelity, and will to fulfill in creatures what by free will he has determined to give them, and according to the proportion of works to bestow the reward established for the works (Iac. I, 12; II, 5; Mt. XX; I Tim. IV, 8; Hebr. X, 36; C. Trid. sess. 6, c. 16). The condignity therefore depends on the internal value of the work, with the acceptance of God presupposed: this does not deny the value of the work but brings it about that the work, which by reason of its value is worthy of reward, this reward is now actually due from God from justice (a. 1).

Hence there does not exist strict justice between God and men according to absolute equality, because our works can confer nothing on God, since the whole goodness of them (being, power, and the very operating) is freely bestowed by his ordination so that he can claim them for himself (a. 1); this ordination being posited, however, if the meritorious value of the works is attended to according to the virtue of the Holy Spirit moving us toward eternal life and according to the dignity of the grace by which man is a partaker of the divine nature and an adoptive son to whom the inheritance of eternal life is due, there is equality of strict justice between the work and the reward promised by God, so that the work is of the same order and of equal value with the reward of eternal life and divine just as it is itself (a. 3). Whence eternal life, by comparison with the proximate cause, namely the works of the just, is a reward owed from justice; but by comparison with the remote cause, namely the power of operating and grace from divine ordination, it is a gift of mercy (C. Trid. sess. 6, c. 16 and sess. 14, c. 8).

195. How meritorious works must be ordered in service of God. — Not all explain this in the same way:

a) Some, like Suarez, deny that a formal ordination of charity is required, saying that every act done from any supernatural motive of its nature implicitly tends toward the supernatural end, and therefore is equal to it in moral estimation and meritorious.

b) Better, however, with the Thomists and Bellarmine it is said that this suffices for merit of congruity; but for merit of condignity an influx from an act of charity is required: for by this we strictly merit the attainment of the end by which we tend toward the end, the Supreme Good as such; but this we do through charity alone, by which we tend toward the Supreme Good in itself. — In practice, however, this opinion does not differ so much from the preceding, because the influx of charity is always present: 1) by way of object or motive: for the act of charity, once exercised and not retracted by mortal sin, refers all following acts of the whole life to God the supernatural end, and, if perhaps not all honest acts, at least all that are proportioned to the supernatural end and from motive and principle are supernatural; 2) also by way of principle, because supernatural acts of virtue do not proceed from grace except through the mediation of charity, just as they do not proceed from a power except through the command of the will, which command proceeds from charity.

c) Indeed, very probably many further say that by this single act of charity all honest acts are referred to the supernatural end, and therefore are done from the motive and principle of charity and thus are supernatural and meritorious, so that in the just man, with charity acting, the act is either supernaturally good and meritorious, or a venial sin. Which would seem to be the opinion of S. Thomas, Q. D. de Malo 2, a. 5, ad 7, and II Sent. d. 40, q. 1, a. 5¹.

d) For this, however, as some have thought (Ballerini, Noldin, Vermeersch), the mere presence of the habit of charity is not sufficient, but the exercise of it is required, because, as S. Thomas says, in II Sent. d. 40, q. 1, a. 5, ad 6, « from this that one is in the habit no one merits, but from this that he actually operates ».

e) Some finally, like S. Bonaventure and S. Alphonsus, require that the act of charity be repeated more often, e. g., every day or every week, or even for each series of actions; and on account of the probability of this opinion it is to be advised that it be exercised more often¹.

196. Degrees of merit. — Saving acts are not equally, but more or less meritorious, according as the conditions of merit are verified more or less. Hence, other things being equal, greater merit is made

1. the more dignified the person acting is, according to the supernatural dignity of habitual sanctifying grace by which man is pleasing to God;

2. the more voluntary the work is, i. e., it proceeds from a more prompt will and is done with greater intensity; and the more free, i. e., the more the agent contributes from his own and from his own dominion;

3. the more the work is informed by charity, namely the more expressly, proximately, and actually it is referred to God; whence it is an excellent practice often to exercise the act of charity and to offer works to God to increase merit, and also to increase charity itself, the root of merit;

4. the more the work is better according to species, excellence, nobility of moral goodness, which nobility depends on the object; e. g., an act is better which regards a more excellent virtue, which has a superior end, which pertains to more virtues. A precept, therefore, does not hinder merit, indeed obedience increases merit because it adds the goodness of a new virtue;

5. and therefore the more the work is difficult in itself: intrinsic difficulty namely which is from the greatness and arduousness of the work itself and from the elevation of its proper object increases merit, because something is so much the better the more it is raised above the powers of man; — but the extrinsic difficulty of labor, which the agent experiences in the good work and which arises from a defect of the agent and of a prompt will, does not increase but rather diminishes. Otherwise the more someone would advance in virtue and experience less difficulty, the less merit he would have. Accidentally, however, a special difficulty on the part of the agent can be the occasion that someone tends toward the good with greater attention and greater effort of will (q. 114, a. 4, ad 2); and then merit is increased not because of the difficulty but because of the intensity of the will.

197. Remark. — For the congruity of merit in relation to some supernatural retribution, the same conditions are required, except the state of grace, the influx of charity, and the promise of God; — this promise, however, as well as the state of grace, are required for merit of congruity more strictly so called and infallible, which namely consists in a friendly right to some reward, without there ever being required a work to reward equality.