De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

Hitherto we contended only this: that from natural powers there can be no sufficient disposition for grace, even if it were reckoned under no name of merit. But now we proceed to establish also this, according to our ability: that before justification, which is made through sanctifying grace, there is in human works nothing of merit, whether of condignity or of congruity. Not only, I say, in morally good works which are done naturally, but neither in those which by divine help are a disposition and preparation for grace—at least in the respect in which they precede grace.¹ I have deliberately distinguished these two members. For after this merit of congruity from pure natural powers has fallen into such ill repute in this age, there are those who now introduce it only with prevenient special help. They wish to attribute this opinion to Scotus. Yet he expressly says in the place cited above, in 4, distinction 14, question 2, that from pure natural powers with common influence there can be attrition which is a merit of congruity for the deletion of mortal sin. And for greater explanation he adds that if it is perfectly circumstanced in the genus of morals, it seems altogether a sufficient disposition for obtaining justice at the term of that attrition, which God has fixed as the term of that attrition. By these words he notes that it is sufficient by the established law. And, that no hesitation may remain, he subjoins that otherwise it would be difficult to save the claim that there is no acceptance of persons with God. And therefore he expressly concedes that such an act from pure natural powers is a merit of congruity for justification. Finally he adds that the same act, unchanged, by the assistance of grace afterward becomes contrition. And he speaks where no sacrament intervenes. Nothing can be said more clearly to assert a natural merit of congruity sufficient, to which by divine law grace infallibly succeeds. And in book 2, distinction 28, he affirms the same of the love of God. Nay, nowhere does he mention special help as regards our being disposed for grace. So much does he everywhere hold it as settled that we can naturally be disposed by congruity for justification—which disposition alone he teaches. But Adrian, Durandus and almost all the Nominalists both think he undoubtedly means this, and themselves hold it. Wherefore this former sense must be examined by us in the first place, since we are soon to speak of special help. And first of all, if the things said in the preceding chapter have truth, by which it was shown that there is no sufficient disposition for grace from our nature, it is more strongly and evidently proved that there is no merit of congruity from nature, since merit carries with it I know not what energy more than disposition.² But that the disputation may be equipped from its own terms, the authors of this opinion distinguish between the merit of condignity and of congruity thus: namely, that the merit of condignity is that which brings with it the nature of debt and justice, like the work of a hired man, by which he makes a right for himself to the wage which is therefore truly owed him. But the merit of congruity is a work to which wages are not owed by justice, but only from a certain congruity. And by this distinction they think themselves sufficiently guarded from the Pelagian contagion. Nor do I brand Catholic men with that mark, as the Lutherans do; nay, I believe a sound and orthodox mind was in them. And therefore I think it a calumny when this crime is objected to them by the Lutherans—nay, on their account, to all Catholics. But if I may disclose my own conscience, the more deeply I consider this merit of congruity, the less I seem to see that it is congruent with the nature of justifying grace. And I understand that the question concerns not only the name but also the matter itself.

The first argument therefore offers itself to me from the name itself.³ For “merit” in Latin, unless it is altogether alienated from its signification beyond all use, is a relative of reward and wages. For where there is no nature of wages, there can be no nature of merit. Nay, merit is derived from wages; therefore unless there is a work to which wages are owed in some respect, it cannot be reckoned merit in any respect. Wherefore, just as wherever there is properly merit there is properly debt, as altogether correlatives, so wherever there is any nature of merit whatsoever, there must also be some little nature of debt. But if there is no nature of debt, neither properly nor improperly, then certainly there will be no nature of merit, properly or improperly. But to establish any nature of debt in natural works, however much it is called improper, cannot be done without detracting something from the nature of grace. For if (according to Paul) where there is debt, there is no longer grace, in the same way that properly owed debt takes away the whole nature of grace, so any asserted nature of debt diminishes the nature of grace.⁴ These are the words of the second Council of Orange, chapter 18:⁵ “Wages are owed to good works, if they are done” (behold the nature of merit, which is understood only in respect of wages), “but grace,” it says, “which is not owed, precedes so that they may be done.” The other point, by which this first argument is confirmed, is to me certainly very great.⁶ Namely, during all the time the Church endured the Pelagian war, it never came into the mind of any of them, whether Pelagians or catholic Fathers, to make this distinction—which, if it were true, would then above all have been necessary. I would not doubt that if they could have devised some name of merit which would in no way injure the nature of grace, either the Pelagians would have protected themselves with it, or the catholic Fathers would have tempered with it the rigor of their censure against them. But simply, without any distinction of merit, in the seventh condemnation of the Council of Palestine, as Augustine reports to Paulinus,⁷ since in the Council of Milevis it is not so expressly stated, he is anathematized who says that the grace of God is given according to our merits. And the same Augustine proves in the Hypognosticon, book 3, that there is no merit of man before grace, from that saying,⁸ “When we were dead in sins, he quickened us together in Christ,” implying that in the sinner, as in a dead man, no merit precedes. And finally he says: “Hear, foolish heretic and enemy of the truth of faith: the good works of free will, which are prepared so that they may be done by the prevenient grace, we do not condemn as having no merit of free will. But by divine authority we condemn the works of free will which are set before grace and are extolled as merits by which one is justified in Christ; for who⁹ has first given to him, and it shall be repaid to him?” Thus Augustine. He does not condemn all works preceding grace as evil, but as having any nature or name of merit. And on the letter to the Galatians, chapter 4: “Christ,” he says, “is formed in the inner man, in a meek and humble heart, not boasting of the merits of works, which are nothing, but with grace itself beginning some merit.” Truly, when he says “they are nothing,” but every merit is begun by grace, he altogether denies that any merits precede grace, whether of condignity or of congruity. For if a merit of congruity had preceded, there would have been some beginning of meriting, whence man could in some way glory. And in the second letter to Sixtus, which is 105: “For receiving this grace,” he says, “by which he who was formerly unjust is made just, no merits precede, since to the merits of the impious not grace but punishment is owed.” Most clearly he says that in the impious there are no merits but of punishment; which he would never have said if morally good works were in any way merits of congruity. And in On Grace and Free Will, chapter 6: “When anyone is made just from being impious,” he says, “then good things are rendered to him for evil things.” He would not have said this if any nature of merit had preceded. And in this sense he there expounds the Redeemer’s word, “Without me you can do nothing”:¹⁰ that is, nothing that contributes anything to the grace of justification. And in the two following chapters he strains with all his sinews to make it most certain that man is justified without any good merits at all, but with only evil merits preceding. I do not know by what color the words of Augustine can be constrained so that he speaks precisely of the merit of condignity. Since the merit of congruity among these men is a good merit, and yet he says that no good merit precedes, but only evil—namely, because although the unrighteous man does some morally good work, that work nevertheless has no quality or name of merit.

But the third reason seems more urgently to overthrow this merit of congruity.¹¹ For Pelagius (as we have it in Augustine against his two letters, chapter 7) used this argument among others against the Catholics: that if no beginning or work preceded in us by which we might be accommodated to grace, then grace would be rather fate or acceptance of persons than benevolence. For if there were nothing more in one than in another, and God nevertheless received this one into his grace before that one, this, he said, would be either from fortune or from acceptance of persons. But if this opinion of the merit of congruity were true, the answer would be ready: namely, that he is received who disposes himself by congruity, while the other is rejected who neglects it. Nay, Scotus himself so answers,¹² since unless this disposition by congruity from natural powers is posited, it is difficult to save the claim that there is no acceptance of persons with God. This word, if I may be pardoned, sounds to my ears the worst of all from this opinion. For Augustine there and all the Fathers everywhere did not refer this cause to any disposition of ours, but only to the mere will of God. For Augustine says¹³ that there is no acceptance of persons except where there is some nature of debt. “Nor indeed,” he says, “is it to be called acceptance of persons when there is no iniquity.” As when that lord of the vineyard in the Gospel parable says:¹⁴ “Friend, I do you no injury if I wish to give to this man what I do not owe.” And therefore, since God owes nothing to anyone, from his good pleasure he draws this one and does not draw that one. Truly, if any such disposition of congruity had been known in that age, neither would Pelagius have had anything to argue, nor would the Fathers have had recourse to the good pleasure of God. And therefore those who think to guard God from acceptance of persons by saying that he gives grace on account of the merit of congruity, which is man’s first work, manifestly meditate in that merit something of a cause in respect of grace. This I believe neither the ancient Fathers nor Paul himself would endure.

Finally, in the last place, that interval between the merit of congruity and of condignity is called into question.¹⁵ Merit is not called condign because God properly owes us anything, as will be explained in its place, but because he has freely established a most certain law that he will render rewards to those who do his commands. Whoever therefore says that we can so prepare ourselves from natural powers—namely, by such a sufficient disposition that, it being posited, God has established immediately to confer grace—is little short of being compelled to say that it is a merit of condignity, such as Pelagius affirmed before the first grace. For to answer that by that disposition grace is not properly owed by justice seems a begging of the question, since between us and God there is no other justice or debt than God’s own law. Certainly if the Church had once granted this to Pelagius, I believe he would have been content, because he did not contend that grace was owed to us by God on account of works, as there is a debt of equality among men, but that it was that just law of God that he who acts well from his natural powers should infallibly be received into his grace. Therefore let us listen to the Fathers, and especially Augustine, in the many places cited and very many others, where he wishes every kind and name of merit previous to grace to be unheard of among Christians. “For grace,” he says at the beginning of the book On the Predestination of the Saints, “is no grace if it is given according to our merits.” And a little later, chapter 2: “Moreover, if God works our faith so that we believe, is it to be feared that he cannot do the whole, and that man therefore claims the first parts for himself so as to deserve to receive the last from him?” See whether anything else is done in this way than that the grace of God be given in any way according to our merits, and thus grace not be grace. For in this way it is rendered as a debt, not given freely. Note “in any way,” for it is as if he had said: in order that grace be grace in a perfect manner, no merit ought to precede in any manner. And such seems to be the determination of the Church. First in the Council of Milevis, although not so expressly, yet in canon 5, where it is determined that the grace of justification is not given so that we may more easily fulfill by grace what we are commanded to do by free will, but simply so that we may fulfill it; and at the same time it is determined that the beginning is simply from grace, and therefore with no merit preceding.

But in the Council of Orange there is an express determination in canon 25, under these words:¹⁶ “This also we healthfully profess and believe: that in every good work we do not begin and afterward are helped by the mercy of God, but he himself, with no good merits preceding, inspires in us both faith and love of himself,” etc. And in these same words the holy Synod of Trent¹⁷ now most rightly uses, session 6, chapter 5 of the confession, where it says that the beginning of justification is from God, with no merits of man preceding. I have brought forward the merits as causes and witnesses; let it be for others to judge whether the merit of congruity is to be rejected, of which neither the Church nor the Fathers ever made mention. Nay, from the time that such hatreds were kindled from the North against the Church of God in these past years. And let the Lutherans now make an end of affixing this disgrace upon us; for not all Catholics approve the merit of congruity, nor do its authors intend the Pelagian sense; nor has the Church ever ceased to confess, whatever may be said of scholastic opinions, that men are justified through Christ our Lord with no merits of their own preceding.

But what I conjecture first deceived the inventor of this name¹⁸ was that he read among the ancients that it is congruous that God should mercifully help him who uses his natural powers well. For it is congruous with the divine goodness that if man, according to his frailty, does what nature can, God according to his mercy should supply what he cannot—supply, I say, not by immediately infusing grace, but by special help, preparing and converting to himself the one to whom he infuses grace. That congruity therefore is not in us but in God. But merit, although they add “of congruity,” unless they wish to call earth heaven, does not place congruity only in God, but a work in man to which grace is in some way owed. And this can in no way be except in one who is in grace. Most clear are the words of Anselm in the Proslogion, chapter 10, speaking with God: “When you punish the wicked, it is just, because it is congruous with their merits. When you spare the wicked, it is just, not because of their merits, but because it is fitting to your will and goodness.” Anselm therefore acknowledges no congruity in our merits, but in his goodness. But when someone begins to be in grace, then he can merit both for himself by condignity and for others by congruity. Wherefore Saint Thomas,¹⁹ although in 1.2 he rejected the opinion which he seemed to follow in the second book of Sentences—namely, that one could merit the first grace for himself by congruity (as is clear in question 114, article 5)—nevertheless does not deny that one who is in grace can merit the first grace for another by congruity, by meriting that God dispose him by good inspiration and motion. And in 3, question 11, he scents in the holy Fathers some merit of congruity with respect to the coming of Christ—namely, prayers proceeding from grace. Yet this merit is not founded on any established law of God always to grant and infallibly to concede what is asked. For many just men pray most earnestly for the conversion of others, and yet do not obtain it, as the Prophet testifies, where he says: “If Moses and Samuel stood before me, my soul would not be toward this people.”²⁰

But whether at least that motion by which man is disposed for grace through special help is a merit of congruity, as some are now beginning to publish? Certainly although this would not inject as much scruple as that work which is done from pure natural powers, nevertheless neither is this to be reckoned under any name of merit. First, because among the Fathers there is no such distinction between the merit of congruity and of condignity, since they nowhere acknowledge the nature of merit where the nature of debt and justice does not underlie it. But the disposition for grace, insofar as it precedes grace in time or in nature, has no nature of right to grace. For there is no dignity at all, and therefore no merit of work, unless first, at least in nature, the person is worthy through sanctifying grace, according to that saying: “The Lord looked upon Abel²¹ and upon his gifts”—that is, upon the gifts because he had first looked upon the person. Hence, as we have it in Augustine’s consideration²² in the Hypognosticon, book 3, and wherever he preaches, fallen man can neither rise again nor do any good except through the grace of Christ; he understands that this is unless he is first freed from sin through him. To this judgment he repeatedly calls that testimony:²³ “If the Son has freed you, you will be truly free,” as if before justifying grace man, a captive, could offer nothing of merit. To this also belongs, “And who has first given to him?” and the rest of that kind.²⁴ Nay, if you do not wish to be deceived in the ancient Fathers, they reckon the divine motion of man to grace and sanctifying grace itself not as two actions of God but as one altogether, like motion and its term—although Saint Thomas, for the sake of explanation, distinguished the help of grace from habitual grace itself. And therefore they do not esteem that motion as merit unless the term is first understood. And then it is no longer only a merit of congruity, but certainly of condignity—not indeed of grace, but of glory, as we shall explain not long after. And so the Fathers reckoned that the help and motion of God, and grace itself, do not fall under merit.

The foundations of the merit of congruity are overturned.— I see no foundations of this merit of congruity in the authors, unless they are those which Saint Thomas brings against himself, chiefly the word of Augustine: “Faith merits justification,” which is in the letter to Paulinus, 106. And in the second letter to Sixtus, which is 105, he had said not dissimilarly that not even the remission of sins is without some merit, if faith obtains it. For the merit of faith is not nothing, by which faith that Publican²⁵ said, “Be propitious to me, a sinner,” and went down justified. But to the first Saint Thomas answers²⁶ that Augustine was sometimes of the opinion that the beginning of faith is from us, which he afterward retracted in the first book of the Retractions. And perhaps to this retracted sense belongs also that “faith merits justification.” Thomas does not say that Augustine formally retracted that faith merits justification, but that the beginning of faith is from us. Yet he says that to the same thing pertains that faith is the merit of justification; and therefore he is judged at the same time to have retracted that the merit of justification is from us, if he ever in this sense thought that faith as our work is the merit of justification. It is true, however, that Augustine²⁷ spoke obscurely about the grace of faith. For in book 2 to Simplician, chapter 2, he distinguishes a twofold grace: namely, the first grace of faith, which is not sufficient for obtaining the kingdom of heaven (and he gives the example of catechumens before they are incorporated into the Church by participation in the sacraments), and the other by which men are now, he says, assigned to the body of Christ and to the holy temple of God. Because unless one is born again of water and the Holy Spirit,²⁸ he shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. But he calls the first grace a beginning, like conception; the second, birth, so that one may come to eternal life. From these words, however, we now take precisely this, which is beyond controversy: namely, that man can receive faith without charity through special help, which is also called the grace of God. Saint Thomas holds this as most certain in 2.2, question 6, article 2. And catechumens sometimes perhaps have that faith without charity, although without doubt they often receive sanctifying grace through the desire for baptism before baptism in reality, as we shall show in its place below. It is therefore a conjecture that wherever Augustine says that faith begins merit and obtains justification, he speaks of that faith which in time, through the help of God, can precede sanctifying grace, as in book 1 of the Retractions, chapter 13, and often elsewhere. But he calls it the beginning of merit exclusively, because faith shows us from whom we ought to ask help. And he also calls this “to obtain justification,” not because there is any nature of merit there. For Augustine never thought that merit is anything other than condignity—namely, that which follows justifying grace. Hence in the Hypognosticon, book 3, where he says that without the help of grace man can begin nothing, he explains that prevenient grace is sanctifying grace. “For man is prevented,” he says, “by medicine—that is, by the grace of Christ—so that he may be healed and restored.” Wherefore he repeats most often that man, a captive through sin, has no liberty for good unless he has been freed by the Spirit of grace from him who said, “If the Son has freed you, you will be truly free,”²⁹ as is clear in On Correction and Grace, book 1, and everywhere in him. The act of faith, therefore, is the beginning of merit.³⁰ But if it is considered as by nature it precedes grace, it is the beginning of merit exclusively, not merit, from the fact that it is the first act and motion by which we are drawn by God. But if it is weighed as following grace, then it is plainly the first merit. And this is the genuine sense of Augustine.³¹ Indeed, in the letter to Paulinus, which is 106, where he speaks of the merit of faith, he expressly says that if a man does some good thing so as to merit grace, the reward is not imputed to him according to grace but according to debt. But if he believes in him who justifies the impious, so that his faith is reckoned to him for justice, then certainly before he is justified by grace, so as to be made just, what is the impious man but impious? Therefore before justifying grace he admits no nature of merit at all, not even in the act of faith. And he adds: “But if anyone says that faith merits the grace of doing well, we cannot deny it.” But yet those who have the faith by which they obtain justification have come to the law of justice through the grace of God. And a little below he says more clearly that faith obtains justification, but immediately he explains his mind, saying: “Not that any merit of man precedes the grace of God, but that grace itself merits to be increased, so that, being increased, it may merit to be perfected.” He does not therefore will that the first grace fall in any way under merit, but the increase of grace. And he speaks expressly of sanctifying grace, since it alone is what is perfected in the fatherland.

But that no doubt may remain concerning Augustine, he openly explains himself in the book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 13, wherever he has said that faith obtains justification. For he does not understand it as by the manner of any merit, but because he teaches how we ought to ask from God the help of doing what the law commands. And we answer in like manner to that passage in the second letter to Sixtus concerning the merit of the Publican’s faith. For either Augustine’s sense is of the merit of condignity,³² because when the Publican entered the temple it is likely that he had come in grace, as one who already then bore in his mind the same humility which he afterward brought forth by the confession of his mouth. And therefore he merited only an increase of justice and holiness. But he is said to have gone out justified—that is, to have done a work of justice—which we shall repeat in the last chapter. Or if merit is spoken of works preceding, it is understood that it was the beginning of merit exclusively, as was explained above concerning the act of faith through special help. And in the second of these senses we must hear Augustine, and Cyprian, and whoever speaks of this matter, saying that faith is some merit. Although perhaps some Fathers speak of merit in the way in which we are accustomed to say of a man who has long lived in sin that he afterward merited to be justified, on account of some morally good works which he did in sin. Not that those are in any way merits with God, but in the usage of speaking we call merits that good use of natural powers, as we were saying before in the first acceptation of merit. It is therefore an invention never before devised³³ that anyone should wish to fasten on Augustine the merit of congruity, which I believe he could never have suspected. But it is also an injury to the Master of the Sentences³⁴ to say that he held that the first grace falls under merit. For in 2 Sentences, distinction 26, he does not deviate a cross finger from Augustine, but expressly denies it. And in distinction 27, chapter 4: “In meriting good things,” he says, “the principal causality is attributed to grace, because the principal cause of good merits is grace itself, by which free will is aroused and healed.” But the grace by which we are healed is without doubt none other than sanctifying grace. And he repeats the same in chapters 5 and 6, where, explaining how faith merits justification, he says that it is proper to each virtue to be a merit through its own act—namely, with charity as guide. To conclude now this troublesome disputation, this is a most evident argument:³⁵ that neither Augustine nor the Fathers knew any other merit than that of condignity. But if they had anywhere spoken of any merit before the first grace, they would forthwith have expressed that they did not understand this of the merit of justice and condignity, but of the merit of congruity or any other, so as to guard against making men Pelagians. Since therefore they never so distinguished concerning merit, it is most manifest that they knew no nature of merit before the grace of justification.