De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

It follows that we speak of the third privilege of our works, which flow from that fountain of living water springing up unto eternal life, discussing whether they are in the sight of God condign merits, both of the increase of grace and finally of that inestimable happiness of his. Let us therefore set aside the first member of that division of merit which we made in book 2, ch. 4, into merit of congruity and merit of condignity. For either there is no merit of congruity at all in our works before justification, which I think has been sufficiently shown there, or it now pertains nothing to the present disputation, where we speak of works which are done through grace and the impulse of God, which are condign merits. But the Lutherans nevertheless shudder at this word: they everywhere reproach us with it, and brand it as a Pelagian mark. For since there are two fundamental conditions of merit — namely, goodness and liberty — Luther built two machines to shake the account of merit.¹ The first was that concupiscence is also in the reborn an inevitable sin. From this he deduced that all our works, not only those which precede grace, but those which the just man does, are sins: and therefore are not such that by them we satisfy the law: whence it immediately follows most consistently that they are not merits. For there cannot be a merit of eternal life with God except the fulfillment of the law: according to that of Christ, If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.² And that of Paul: Not the hearers only, but the doers of the law shall be justified.³ The other most celebrated error of Luther was to deny our free will before God, and with this removed no account of merit can stand: as we shall now make clear. Therefore they say that we are justified by faith alone to such an extent that not only do no works of ours concur to the first grace as dispositions, but neither afterwards is it increased by the virtue of them, nor do we merit glory, but only on account of the promise, which is apprehended by faith alone, both are sinners reconciled, and to the reconciled the increases of grace come, and finally glory is bestowed. Nor do they take away merit from the works of the just man only, but, as is clear in On Christian Liberty and the other places which we mentioned in ch. 5, they think all things futile and vain except one faith, by which the mercy of God is apprehended. And this they repeat again and again afterwards in their syllabus⁴ of the reformation they have obtained, that no reward is owed to just works, at least eternal life, but that it is owed only to the promise of God, and by that precise reason will be conferred on us by God, that he may be faithful. And this is their confession in the Augustan [Confession]. In its apology Melanchthon,⁵ where he answers the arguments of the adversaries concerning works, after he had said that the justification of the just man is nothing else than to be reputed just, and that he is not reputed just on account of the justice of the work, but through the mercy of God apprehended by faith, says: From all these things it can also be understood what must be said of the merit of condignity, of which the adversaries feign that the just are just before God on account of love and the fulfillment of the law: where they make no mention of the justice of faith. These things are in no way to be tolerated, etc. This is the frenzy which has demented these men in this place: namely, that in asserting the merit of condignity we deny the justice of faith and the help of God after the first justification. Which is a most manifest calumny. And so he adds again and again that our works, even in grace, are not such that eternal life is owed for them, although they are meritorious of other rewards: concerning which we shall speak a little later. This matter must first be explained, and the doubts examined concerning which Catholics differ somewhat: then it must be asserted against the Lutherans. Therefore, to begin from the very name and definition of merit, whence the arguments are chiefly to be sought: the appellation of merit is a very sad one among the Latins: as to merit well or ill of the commonwealth, or of a friend, which name is derived from reward. For merit is a work to which a reward is owed, and to merit is to make a right for oneself to a reward. For this reason in book 2 we rejected merit of congruity from the account of merit. Since merit is a work of justice. But for investigating the account and nature of merit, a beginning is most aptly taken from what St. Thomas noted, 1.2 q. 21 art. 3.⁶ For three things are to be considered in a human action. First, liberty, from which it has that it is blameworthy or praiseworthy. For on account of those things which are in us from nature, we are neither praised nor blamed. Then the order to the end, from which it has the account of virtue or vice. Then the respect to another: namely, to the commonwealth or to a singular person, to whom it brings either utility or harm: and from this it has the account of merit or demerit. For so the scholastics call an evil merit. And understand these three orders in such a way that as the second includes the first, so the third includes both in its own account. Hence therefore three conditions of merit become clear.⁷ The first, that it be a free work. For without liberty, as a work is neither virtue nor vice, so neither is it merit or demerit. Wherefore the theologians who think that there can be merit in natural things are ignorant of its nature.⁸ Unless perhaps by metaphor natural congruity is called dignity: as he said, Beauty is first worthy of command. For if a prince should confer some benefit on a man either on account of beauty, or on account of birth, or for any other gift of nature, there would be in that no account either of merit or of reward. Nor if God (as they feign concerning his absolute power) should confer glory on anyone on account of a natural good, would there be there an account either of merit or of reward. As if Christ had deigned to honor the sons of Zebedee in the kingdom of heaven with this honor, that they should sit at his right and left, for this only, that they were his cousins. The natural reason for this is that to merit is to give something to another, and to confer it for his good:⁹ but no one gives except what he is master of: but we are masters of our actions through free will:¹⁰ therefore where there is no liberty, there is no merit. Now merit is the same as obedience: but no one obeys except through free will. Wherefore the sun does not properly obey us, because it is acted upon, and therefore merits nothing from us, nor do trees, nor irrational animals. Although the humanity of mortals is sometimes to indulge them. As it is in the histories concerning the Athenians, that¹¹ when the Hecatompedon was being built, they released the mules which had labored excellently, freed them from bonds, and sent them out to pasture freely. Nay, neither do they properly have right or dominion over life.¹² The contrary of which some doctors have most ineptly thought. Although they have an appetite for living, and have received from the same nature the instinct to preserve life. For where there is no liberty, there is no right, but the whole right of irrational things belongs to the possessors, and he does injury to them who kills or harms beasts without cause. And for the same reason, because namely they are partakers of no action which is worthy of reward, Aristotle infers that neither a good nor a just man, nor any other animal, is called happy.¹³ Unless also by metaphor: as the horse of Alexander.¹⁴ For this same cause the same Aristotle in that place placed moral happiness in none of the goods either of nature or of fortune, but in free operation according to virtue. For in the Olympic games, he says, it is not the most beautiful or the strongest who is crowned, but those who enter the contest, and of these those who conquer. To which pertains the word of the Apostle: No one shall be crowned unless he has striven lawfully.¹⁵ And: If I do it willingly, I have a reward.¹⁶ But in book 1, in the treatise On Free Will, it has been more than sufficiently demonstrated that there is no account either of sin or of merit except where there is liberty. For so Augustine says against Fortunatus: I say that it is not sin unless one sins by will: and hence there is a reward, because we do right by our own will. And Tertullian to Marcion, book 2: Neither the reward of good nor of evil, he says, would be justly weighed out to him who had been found either good or evil by necessity, and not by will. But someone may object that there are some works in which there is not liberty in every respect, which nevertheless are meritorious. It is clear concerning the works of the apostles and of the most holy Virgin, who, since they had been confirmed in grace, could not transgress or omit any commandment: and yet the very observance of the commandments was merit for them.¹⁷ For it would be absurd to say that through obedience to the commandments they did not profit before God. Nay, Christ himself merited for us, and indeed most especially through his passion, which nevertheless he could not fail to undergo, whether because it was commanded to him, or because such was the will of the Father, to which, although no commandment was joined, he could not be contrary.¹⁸ And from this the doubt is greatly increased, that the love of God naturally followed in Christ on the beatific vision: and yet it seems to have been meritorious, since he was at once both blessed and a wayfarer. This argument is dissolved by this distinction.¹⁹ The absence of liberty is threefold: one from the nature of the subject, which is rather a negation than a privation, such as is in brute animals. And works devoid of liberty of this kind are neither good nor evil, and therefore neither worthy of praise nor blame, as has been said. The second is the absence of liberty toward evil, and this is twofold. One is in a certain manner natural, such as is in the blessed. For from that ineffable intuition of God there follows by natural consequence a love which by its nature excludes every possibility of acting wickedly.²⁰ Although in this sense they love freely, because they do it from a will fixed in God. And therefore their works, although they are most good, and worthy not only of praise but even of honor, are nevertheless in no way merits of accumulating reward, but rather have the account of reward itself. And the same must be judged in like manner concerning the beatific love of Christ.²¹ For I would never believe that that love was meritorious in Christ, but he merited through the love which he had as a wayfarer, and through the works proceeding from it. The third absence of liberty, therefore, is not altogether, but as to evil, and that indeed not from nature but from privilege: because in the composite sense it does not stand that something is commanded and is not done: and this does not take away the account of merit. For the apostles, although they could not transgress mortally, could nevertheless suffer difficulty and labor in keeping the law: and besides, because they did the things commanded out of obedience, they merited. Otherwise from the privilege of confirmation they would receive this loss, that the same works would not be meritorious for them which are meritorious for others. And besides, concerning many other works to which they were not obliged, there is no doubt but that they were meritorious. And the same, and much more worthily, must be thought concerning the works of Christ: for he was offered because he himself willed it, and therefore that spontaneous obedience and endurance of a most bitter death was an immense merit with the Father of our salvation, and that there should be given to him the name which is above every name.²²

The second condition of merit is that it be a good work, that is, a work of virtue:²³ whence it is that merit is not a work of commutative justice (as Durandus thinks in 2 Sent. d. 28)²⁴ but of distributive justice. For although the name merit was first imposed on services and mercenary works to which a wage is owed — as one is said to merit a horse or a pen, and to have a meritorious house — nevertheless its proper nature is thence derived to the offices of friendship. As we are said to merit well or ill of a friend. Wherefore the difference is that in commutative justice equality is precisely weighed of thing to thing, whether the work proceeds from friendship or from enmity, whether from virtue or from vice. For he who lets out his labor, whether he does it out of enmity or for any other base intention, acquires a right to equal pay. But it is otherwise in the merit of distributive justice, which must necessarily proceed from friendship toward him of whom we merit well, and therefore must be a work of virtue. Except that among men, who see only external works, hypocrisy is often esteemed as virtue. For according to Aristotle, friendship is either virtue or joined with virtue.²⁵ For this reason, in the distribution of rewards according to merits, equality of thing to thing is not attended to, but proportionality, or the equality of proportions of rewards to the dignities of persons: according to the explanation of the same 5 Ethics. That as the person is to the person, so also should be the proportion of reward to reward. But if the work is also considered (as, because I was hungry, and you gave me to eat), that is only insofar as the dignity of the person is estimated from it. By these things the third condition of merit is clear. Namely, in what way a meritorious work ought to redound to the common good, or to that of a particular friend. For with respect to the common good it is enough if it be a work of virtue: for thence public honors are owed by right to citizens by the prince, who is the guardian of justice, as Aristotle says in the same place. Since justice itself and justice in this respect are preserved in the commonwealth if rewards are established for the good and punishments for the evil.

This account, therefore, of explained merit must be accommodated to our works, and it must be examined whether the services which we exhibit to God through his grace are merits with his majesty.²⁶ For the question is placed in two doubts. The first:²⁷ Merit is the same as right, and therefore it denotes equality; but we can offer nothing to God equal to eternal life, not only because, as Aristotle says, we cannot render equal to the gods and to parents²⁸ (since from them we have received being and life, to which no other good is comparable), but because God is infinitely distant from us, and eternal life is not estimable by any services of ours: therefore there is no justice or merit of ours with him. The other doubt is:²⁹ Reward and prize denote something owed: but God, who does not need our goods, can owe nothing to us. For who has first given to him (as Paul says) and it shall be repaid to him?³⁰ therefore eternal life is not the reward of our works. There are among the theologians (as Durandus³¹ in 2 Sent. d. 28) those who deny that works, however much preceding grace, are simply and properly merits of condignity, but only merit in a broad sense. Where he seems to censure St. Thomas, 1.2 q. 114, who appears to think the contrary.³² The reason of Durandus is that a merit of condignity properly is one to which an equal is simply owed by the virtue of the work: but no work of ours can be equal to eternal life, nor does God bestow it on us from justice, but from a certain liberality and his own ordination. Since he freely accepts our works. But certainly one who has thoroughly meditated on what it is to become a son of God through grace will have a different judgment concerning the works of the just man.³³ Therefore since merit of condignity is a work of justice, a distinction must be made, as we said above concerning satisfaction.³⁴ For one is perfect, which presupposes no account of grace at all. And in this way only Christ could merit with God: for his works were works of the true God, which therefore by their own nature were meritorious. But another is merit which, although it does not have the perfect account of justice, is nevertheless properly just. And such is the work of the just man with God. For the just, as St. Thomas is the author in the cited question, is one thing simply, in which there is simply equality: such as is in exchanges and services among citizens: but another which, although it is not simply equal and just, nevertheless has the mode of justice: as paternal and dominative right is spoken of: namely, of sons to a father, and of servants to a lord. Which indeed is the true and proper account of justice. For a good son obeying his father, although he does not render as much as he received from him, nevertheless has a true and proper right to be nourished and educated by his father: and so a servant with respect to his lord. By which reason, since through grace a man is made truly and properly an adopted son of God, although he received that adoption freely, nevertheless his services are properly and truly merits of justice with the Father. Whence Paul says: You have received the spirit of adoption of sons, in which we cry, Abba, Father: for the Spirit himself gives testimony to our spirit that we are sons of God, and heirs: heirs indeed of God, but co-heirs with Christ: if nevertheless we suffer with him, that we may be glorified together.³⁵ In these words indeed anyone with keen eyes can see that although our justice is founded in grace, and therefore does not have so perfect an account of justice, nevertheless grace being supposed, it is properly justice. Not indeed simply of equality on the part of the object. For this is what he adds: The sufferings of this time are not condign. But nevertheless it is truly and properly the right of sons. For he says: If sons, therefore heirs, which suffices for the proper account of merit. We do not therefore deny that that merit is founded in the divine ordination:³⁶ because we can merit nothing with him except according to the virtue which he himself confers on us: nevertheless through it we justly merit. For as natural things operate through the virtues received from him, and are nevertheless causes of their effects, so in supernatural things, although we are moved forward through his virtue, we nevertheless truly produce just merits in his sight. But you say, although they are merits, they are not nevertheless of eternal life. Nay rather, this is what "therefore heirs" designates. And: If anyone loves me, he shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him:³⁷ since this is eternal life, that we see him. But St. Thomas notes there in art. 3, and all the theologians in 1 d. 17 and 2 d. 28, that the work of the just man can be considered in two ways.³⁸ In one way insofar as it proceeds from free will, and in another way insofar as it proceeds from the grace of the Holy Spirit. In the first way there is not in it condignity to eternal life on account of its greatest excellence, but nevertheless there is a congruity of proportion, that to a man working according to his virtue, God recompenses according to the excellence of his virtue. Note that St. Thomas does not place this congruity in works before grace, but in the works of the just man. But if works are considered insofar as they proceed from the grace of the Holy Spirit, thus, he says, they are meritorious of eternal life of condignity. For the value of merit is attended to according to the virtue of the Holy Spirit: according to that: There shall be made in him a fountain of water springing up unto eternal life.³⁹ And besides, because the price of the work is attended to according to the dignity of grace, through which man is made a partaker of the divine nature, and is adopted as a son, to whom the inheritance is owed. And in the solution to the third he says: The grace of the Holy Spirit, which we have at present, although it is not equal to glory in act, is nevertheless equal in virtue:⁴⁰ as the seed of trees, in which is the virtue to germinate the whole tree, and because through it the Holy Spirit dwells in man, it is called by the Apostle the pledge of our inheritance. He understands therefore that it is a merit of true and proper justice, on account of this measure and mode of grace, in relation to glory. For although the name of seed is metaphorical, there is nevertheless in grace a true virtue toward glory, and therefore an equality of justice most like a seed. For one grain is not equal to the ear, but nevertheless it is worth as much in virtue, and clearly bears the ear in its time. But that distinction between free will and grace deceives certain people.⁴¹ Namely, those who gather from this that merits are not properly ours, but God's alone: when the matter is otherwise. For the virtue of the Holy Spirit and free will are two things concurring to the account of one integral principle. For as the work of free will would not be merit without the virtue of God, so neither would the work of God be merit unless it were done through the free will of human or angelic nature. For God does not merit through his own works alone (as when he created the world). Nor can he make the works of a plant or of a brute animal meritorious. Merit therefore is a work of God and of ours. Of him, namely, as moving, and ours as freely cooperating: as has been sufficiently demonstrated above.⁴²

From these things the other argument is easily solved: God properly owes nothing to us, both because no one has first given to him, but he himself gives us the very works through which we merit, and therefore our whole right is founded in his grace: and because these things which we give to him do not redound to his utility, but rather to ours. Wherefore although he should give us no further reward than to work well, he would do us no injury. Nay, even if he should drive those blessed inhabitants of heaven from the kingdom, he would do them no injury. Therefore there is no merit in us to which God owes anything. The answer is that God owes the reward from his own ordination, by the justice which is from him in our works: which is to owe it to his own goodness and most firm truth. As is gathered from the parable of the householder agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day. There is an example in natural things. He himself made the natures of things, and therefore according to his ordination gave light to the sun, intellect to man, etc. Wherefore as it is repugnant for the sun to be and not to be luminous by its nature, on account of the debt of nature, which is the justice of God himself, so it is repugnant to his goodness and justice that he should not repay eternal life for the works of those whom he has once adopted as his own through grace. And this is not an improper account of debt. Wherefore if he denied the reward to one who merits, although he would do injury to no one (as Bernard says in the sermon on the Annunciation), he would nevertheless deny his own law and himself, who is nevertheless faithful, and cannot deny himself.

By these things an answer is given to the other doubt which is raised here last, whether besides sanctifying grace a new acceptance of God is necessary for a work to be meritorious of condignity.⁴³ For Scotus in 1 d. 17 q. 1 thinks that it is not enough for a work to be elicited by grace in order to be meritorious of eternal life: but beyond this it is required that it be accepted by God and ordained to such an end.⁴⁴ First, because otherwise, he says, if a work were meritorious of condignity by the reason that it proceeds from grace, which is already a principle and form existing in man, it would follow that insofar as it proceeds from man, God could not fail to repay beatitude without being unjust, since before his acceptance the work was already worthy. And besides, the reward of eternal life is always greater than the merit: but the greater is not repaid for the lesser from the rigor of justice, but only from the liberality and acceptance of the one conferring it. The school of the Nominalists nearly follows Scotus.⁴⁵ Nevertheless there is indeed no argument which can convince this. Nay, the reason to the contrary is much more probable.⁴⁶ First, as Scotus himself and all confess in 2 d. 27 and 3 d. 28, grace is nothing else than acceptance to glory: if therefore through grace a man is already accepted to glory, what need is there of a new acceptance of the work? For if sons, therefore heirs. Nay, it is a manifest repugnance that a person be accepted whose work is not pleasing to God. For a work is pleasing for this reason, because the person is pleasing. For God looked upon Abel and upon his gifts.⁴⁷ Whence to the first argument of Scotus it is denied that if a work, because it proceeds from grace, were meritorious, God would therefore be unjust if he did not render the reward: since that merit depends on the grace making the person pleasing. Therefore the very thing which he himself says about the second acceptance — namely, that because God first accepts the work, it is meritorious, and he is not properly a debtor to us — we say about the grace making the person pleasing. Namely, that he is therefore not properly a debtor to us: because he first makes the man pleasing, whence the merit proceeds. Except that he does not altogether see the account of merit in the way that it is the work of a son of God. And yet the truth of the matter is that by reason of the grace of adoption and of the acceptance of the person, the work is meritorious. And because the work is meritorious, it is accepted. For to say that because it is accepted, the work is meritorious, seems a contradiction in the added term. For to be freely accepted does not place justice and dignity in the work itself, but mere grace. To the second argument the answer is that although God rewards beyond condignity, nevertheless the work is meritorious, because it proceeds from the grace of the person, which is the seed of glory.