Summa summae S. Thomae, Tomus III

[By faith it is certain that it is licit in some sense to serve God, whether loving him or exercising other works of virtue, on account of retribution.]

Thus it was defined in the Council of Trent, session VI, chapter 11 and canon 31, in these words: « If anyone shall say that the justified man sins while he does good works with a view to eternal reward; let him be anathema. »

[This is true even if man is not in the state of justice, as is clear from the condemnation of the following proposition by Alexander VIII: « Whosoever serves God even with a view to eternal reward, if he lack charity, is not without fault, as often as he acts with a view even to beatitude. » It is the 13th.]

It is evident from Scripture in several places. David says, Psal. CXVIII, 112: I have inclined my heart to do thy justifications, on account of retribution. The Apostle relates, Hebr., XI, 8, 26, that Abraham and Moses did good with a view to eternal reward. Christ incites the Apostles to patience in sufferings with a view to reward: Rejoice, he says, and exult, because your reward is abundant in heaven. And the Church sings of the martyrs: « They delivered their bodies to torments, that they might become heirs in the house of the Lord. »

I say 2°: It is not licit to love God or serve him on account of retribution as on account of an end of the thing loved, that is, of God¹: partly because God cannot be ordered to anything as to an end, since he himself is the last end to which all things are ordered; partly because otherwise the retribution would be loved more than God; for the end is loved more than those things which are directed to the end.

I say 3°: It is licit to serve God, whether loving him or exercising works of virtue, on account of eternal retribution, in such a way that the retribution be the end of love and good works, not ultimate, but further orderable to God².

It is proved as to the first part. 1° There is no disorder in that means are ordered to their own proper and legitimate end, and merits to reward. Now the proper and legitimate end of good works and their reward is eternal beatitude, according to that word, Matt., XIX, 17: If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. And 1 Pet., 1, 9: Bearing about the end of your faith, the salvation of souls. This the things we adduced for the first conclusion prove.

2° It belongs to friends to seek mutual fruition. Now our reward is nothing else than to enjoy God. Therefore.

It is proved as to the second part. Our last end is God. Now eternal beatitude, although objectively it is God, formally nevertheless is not God, but something created, namely the beatific vision. Therefore.

Hence follows the third part. For if we can serve God on account of eternal retribution as on account of the end of good works, but not ultimate: therefore as on account of an end further orderable to God, so that we intend to see God, that we may love him more securely and more intensely, and praise and glorify him for eternity; so affected, that if no beatitude were to be hoped for, we would nonetheless love him and serve him.

I say 4°: It is licit to serve God with a view to temporal reward, not as an end properly so called of good works — for it would be disordered that acts of virtue, which are more excellent than temporal goods, be ordered as means to them as to an end — but as accompanying some good, or conducing to it, so that they hold the place only of certain accessory motives. For temporal goods help us toward attaining the supernatural end: 1° inasmuch as through them this corporal life, in which alone opportunity is given for meriting beatitude, is sustained; 2° inasmuch as they serve us organically for acts of virtue.

The practice of the Church confirms this, which asks of God serenity, rain, fruits, etc. Indeed Christ himself commands us to ask in the Lord's Prayer for our daily bread.