ARTICLE IV.

WHETHER GRACE IS THE PRINCIPLE

OF MERIT PRINCIPALLY BY CHARITY

State of the question. It seems that some power especially infused should be the principle of any merit and labor; but charity rather diminishes the labor. Acts of faith because of their obscurity and of patience because of their difficulty seem to be far more meritorious. 

Reply. Grace is the principle of merit more particularly by charity. 

Proof from Scripture from the argument Sed contra. “He that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father: and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him” (John 14:21); “Whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple (out of fraternal charity), amen I say to you, he shall not lose his reward” (Matt. 10:42); “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision: but faith that worketh by charity” (Gal. 5:6); “And if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing . . . and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (I Cor. 13:2 f.).

Theological proof.

1. An act is meritorious by divine ordination according as it tends toward a final supernatural end. But all acts of the other virtues tend toward a final supernatural end, that is, to God loved for His own sake efficaciously above all things, through charity; for God loved for His own sake is the proper object of charity. Therefore. Cf. the answers to objections 1 and 3.

Even if charity imperates the natural act of an acquired virtue, this act is meritorious of eternal life and supernatural as to mode. 

2. What we do out of love, we do with the greatest willingness. But man merits inasmuch as he acts willingly and freely. Therefore.  If a person in the state of mortal sin elicits an act of theological hope, the final end of this act is God loved above all things ineficaciously by a love of concupiscence, and by charity alone is He loved efficaciously above all things with a love of friendship. 

Objection. But charity diminishes the difficulty, and the more difficult a work is the more meritorious it is.

Reply to second objection. Charity diminishes the subjective difficulty which arises from a defect in the worker, but not the objective difficulty which proceeds from the magnitude of the work. On the contrary, charity impels us to undertake arduous labors. But the objective difficulty on account of the magnitude of the work pertains to the increase of merit; on the other hand, the subjective difficulty proceeding from a defect in the worker diminishes merit.

Reply to third objection. An act of faith is not meritorious unless faith acts through love.

Corollary. The Blessed Virgin Mary merited more by even the easiest acts of charity than all the martyrs together in their sufferings, because of the greater intensity of her charity.

Doubt. Whether at least the virtual influence of charity is necessary to merit eternal life. It is a question of merit de condigno of eternal life.

The generality of Thomists and many other theologians answer in the affirmative, against Vasquez, who holds that this virtual influence is not necessary for acts of the other virtues, even acquired, and against Suarez who maintains that this virtual influence is not necessary for acts of the infused virtues.

Proof of the general opinion.

1. From St. Thomas in the present article, 4 c ad I and 3; Ia, q. 95, 4; De malo, q. 6, a. 5 ad 7. In fact, he affirms in II, d. 40, q. I, a. 5 ad 6: “Habitual ordination of an act toward God does not suffice, since it merits nothing by being a habit but by performing an act.” It is the case of a candidate who knows his subject but is mute or unable to speak.

2. The opinion is based on many texts from Sacred Scripture where, with reference to the principle of merit, this is not assigned to habitual charity alone but to its act. For example: “He that shall receive one such little child in My name, receiveth Me” (Matt. 18:5); “And every one that hath left house . . . or father or mother . . . for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting” (ibid., 19:29).

3. The principal theological argument is the one already given in the present article, 4 c and ad I. “Charity, so far as it has the final end for its object, moves the other virtues to act, for the habit to which the end belongs always imperates the habits to which belong the means to the end.” In other words, we merit to attain the final end by that whereby we tend toward it, that is, by charity at least virtually influencing us.

First confirmation. For an act to be meritorious of eternal life it must be rendered in obedience to God the rewarder. But this is done by charity virtually influencing it and not by the other virtues. Therefore there must be the love of God at least virtually influencing the act. 

Second confirmation. The essential reward in heaven corresponds to the essential perfection of the way. But the Christian perfection of a wayfarer consists essentially and especially in charity, according to the words of St. Paul: “Above all these things have charity, which is the bond of perfection” (Col. 3:14). (Cf. IIa IIae, q. 184, a. I.) Therefore the essential reward in heaven corresponds to the charity of the wayfarer. Thus the degree of merit is the degree of charity. 

Objection. St. Thomas says, De malo, q. 2, a. 5 ad 7: “To those who possess charity, every act is either meritorious or demeritorious,” since there are no indifferent acts in the individual. But according to the preceding opinion there may exist in the just man an act which is neither meritorious nor demeritorious, since there may be an act good in itself, for instance, ethically good, but without the virtual influence of charity—such as paying a debt.

Reply. In a just man all acts of virtue are under the virtual influence of charity according as the just man, not merely at the instant of justification, but often, elicits and is bound to elicit acts of charity by virtue of which all things are referred to God, as St. Thomas teaches, De virtutibus, q. 2, a. II ad 2. Therefore all the good works of the just are meritorious but not without the virtual influence of charity.  charity is not required. Therefore neither is it required for merit. 

Reply. Let the premise pass (cf. treatise on penance); I deny the consequence, since more is required for merit than for satisfaction, which depends upon an equality between the punishment and the guilt, not upon an equality or proportion between the good work and the excellence of the reward.

Third objection. For prayer to possess impetratory force the influence of charity is not required, for a sinner is able to pray; therefore neither is it required for merit.

Reply. There is a disparity, for impetration of itself refers only to the order of divine mercy, but merit refers to justice. Thus a sinner in the state of mortal sin can pray and does so at times, which is a salutary act, but he cannot merit, except de congruo in the broad sense.  (Cf. IIa IIae, q. 83, a. 15 and 16.) Therefore the conclusion stands: without the virtual influence of charity, no act of virtue, either acquired or infused, in the just man, is meritorious de condigno of eternal life, since charity imperates all the virtues as the will does all the faculties.

First corollary. Merit is greater or less according to whether charity influences the act more or less, proximately or remotely. Cf. treatise on charity under acts remiss in charity.

Second corollary. Subjectively at least, an easy act proceeding from greater charity is more meritorious than a very difficult act proceeding from less charity. Thus, as has been said, the Blessed Virgin Mary merited more by easy acts than all the martyrs together by their tortures.

Third corollary. All the meritorious works of Christ were of the same infinite personal value (inasmuch as they proceeded from the same divine person and from the plenitude of His charity, which did not increase) but not all were of the same objective value. Thus, objectively, His passion was of greater value than, for example, His preaching, on account of the magnitude of the work. In the same way, teaching theology for God’s sake is more meritorious, objectively, than cooking for God’s sake, but if the cook does his work with greater charity than the master in theology, subjectively the cook merits more than the theologian.

From the preceding four articles of St. Thomas can now be drawn the conditions necessary for merit. There are six here enumerated proceeding in order from the more general to the more particular.  Thus we may construct a very clear and complete definition of a meritorious work according to remote and proximate genus and specific difference. But it is attained only at the end of the hunt or inquisition which was pursued through the foregoing articles.

A meritorious work must be: 1. free; 2. good; 3. in submission or obedience to the rewarder (this is true even for merit in the human order, such as a soldier’s merit) ; 4. the work of a wayfarer, 5. proceeding from sanctifying grace and charity; 6. ordained by God to a promised reward. We shall explain each of these conditions briefly. They are all necessary for merit de condigno; in the course of the explanation it will be indicated which are not absolutely necessary for merit de congruo.

1. The work must be free. This is of faith against Jansenius (Denz., no. 1094), whose third proposition is condemned: “For meriting and demeriting in the state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity is not required in man; freedom from coercion suffices.” The reason for this condition is that a person merits or is deserving of reward so far as he injects something of his own, and is the author of his act. But man has dominion only over free acts, which are within his power; cf. the present a. 4 and De malo, q. 6, a. I, also the Salmanticenses. However, free consent to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost moving one to acts of the gifts suffices without any deliberation strictly speaking; for example, the gift of piety over and above discursive reasoning. Hence Christ would not have merited for us had He not been free in fulfilling the command of His Father; as impec-cable He could not disobey privatively and yet He freely obeyed with a liberty confirmed in good.5

2. It must be a good work, for an evil work is deserving of punishment and an indifferent work would not sufice; it would be without relation to a reward. Moreover, there is no such thing with regard to the individual. In fact, a meritorious work must possess supernatural goodness proportioned to the supernatural reward; a work which is only ethically good does not suffice, as will be shown more explicitly in the fifth condition.

3. It must be a work done under submission or obedience to the rewarder, that is, in subordination and obedience to God; cf. Ia IIae, q. 21, a. 3; IIa IIae, q. 104, a. 3. Otherwise there would be no reason for expecting a reward from God; moreover, if our works are not referred to God they are not of the supernatural order. But an act of real charity cannot be performed except for the sake of God and, accordingly, except in subjection and reverence toward God.

4. It must be the act of a wayfarer; cf. Ia, q. 62, a.9 ad 3. This is manifest from revelation: “In what place soever it [the tree] shall fall, there shall it be” (Eccles. 11:13) ; “The night cometh [that is, death] when no man can work,” not meritoriously, of course (John 9:4); “Whilst we have time, let us work good” (Gal. 6:10); “For we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done, whether it be good or evil” (II Cor. 5:10); “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27).

 A reason of suitability is put forth; that is, merit is a motion and a way to a reward; therefore once the reward is obtained, the merit ceases. But this argument proves only that the blessed cannot merit the essential reward which they already possess; it does not really prove that they cannot merit an accidental reward or increase of glory; nor does it prove that the souls detained in purgatory can no longer merit.

It is admitted, however, that the term of man’s pathway is death for, as St. Thomas explains (Contra Gentes, Bk. IV, chaps. 92-95), since man is naturally composed of soul and body, the body by its nature is united to the soul for the benefit of the soul; because matter exists for the sake of form, that is, so that the soul may tend toward and attain to its perfection. Therefore, after the separation from the body, the soul is no longer strictly wayfaring. But this is only an argument from suitability. There would be no certainty on the subject without a revelation manifesting God’s will.

The difficulty regards the term of our way. Cajetan, with reference to Ia, q. 64, a. I, no. 18, declares: “The soul is rendered inflexible by the first act which it elicits in the state of separation from the body and then demerits, not as in life, but as arrived at its term.” But this opinion is generally not accepted, as the Salmanticenses remark, De gratia, “de merito,” disp. I, dub. IV, no. 36; for, according to the testimony of Holy Scripture, men can merit and demerit before death, but not in death; and it would not be a man who merited but a separated soul. Therefore the state of wayfarer ceases with the state of union between soul and body, and before the first instant of separation between the soul and the body the time was divisible to an infinite degree, but at that instant there is no longer either wayfaring or merit. For as in matters which are measured by time, the first nonexistence of the way coincides with the first instant of the new state, that is, with the first existence of separation from the body. Otherwise, moreover, a person dying in the state of mortal sin might be saved and one dying in the state of grace might be damned; furthermore, an infant dying without baptism could be saved by an act elicited at the first instant of separation from the body. Baptism would then not be necessary for the salvation of infants nor would a limbo exist for such souls.

Vasquez teaches that the blessed can merit accidental reward, and the souls in purgatory as well; but he brings forward a text of St. Thomas in support unwarrantedly, as the Salmanticenses demonstrate. These latter hold that Elias and Enoch are in the state for meriting since they are still wayfarers.

5. It must proceed from sanctifying grace under the virtual influence of charity; cf, q. 114, a. 2. As we have said, it is of faith that the act must proceed from sanctifying grace and charity. (Council of Trent, Sess. VI, chap. 8.) “If I . . . have not charity, I am nothing . . . it profiteth me nothing” (I Cor. 13:2 f.), in the order of eternal life. This is because otherwise there would be no intrinsic proportion between a meritorious work and a supernatural reward and hence no right to the reward; in fact, man would remain in the state of mortal sin, deserving of punishment, not reward. However, merit de congruo broadly speaking, based on the mercy of God, may exist without this condition, in the same way as the impetrative value of the prayer of a sinner; cf. a. 3.

6. It must be a work ordained by God toward a promised reward; cf. q. 114, a. I ad 3: “Our action has no reason for merit except on the presupposition of a divine ordination; [wherefore] it does not follow that God becomes our debtor absolutely [who hath first given to Him?], but rather His own, so far as it is due to Him that His ordination should be fulfilled.” Again in article 2 c: “The merit of man depends on divine preordination” since “all the good in man comes from God” and man has no right before God unless he receives such a right from God. Hence without this divine ordination and promise, our good works would give us no right to a reward, since they are already due to God by several other titles, such as creation, supreme dominion, final end. Therefore, even if God had not promised us a reward, man ought to love God above all things.6

This doctrine is based on Holy Scripture: “The man that endureth temptation . . . when he hath been proved, . . . shall receive the crown of life, which God hath promised to them that love Him” (Jas. 1:12); “He that cometh to God, must believe that He is, and is a rewarder to them that seek Him” (Heb. 11:6). The Council of Trent (Sess. VI, chap. 16; Denz., no. 809) defines: “To those who work well unto the end, hoping in God, eternal life is offered both as the grace mercifully promised to the sons of God through Christ Jesus and as the reward faithfully rendered to their good works by the promise of the same God.”’

Confirmation. The good works of the blessed and of the souls in purgatory are not meritorious, because God has not ordained them to a reward. For God does not order good works to a reward outside of the state of wayfarer, although He could do so if He so willed. 

This sixth condition which is required for merit de condigno but not really for merit de congruo was misinterpreted by Scotus and the Nominalists. They understood that a meritorious act possesses its condignity extrinsically and solely on account of this promise; therefore they held that God could accept a merely natural good act as meri-torious de condigno of eternal life.

The true sense of this sixth condition, as we have already observed in agreement with the majority of Thomists, is that, beyond the intrinsic worth which every meritorious act possesses on account of sanctifying grace and charity, the promise of a reward to be rendered is necessary that there may be a strict right to the reward obliging God to render it. Thus, in the souls detained in purgatory, acts of charity are no longer meritorious, although free, good, supernatural, and performed in obedience to God.

Cajetan, in refuting Scotus on article 4, did not perhaps advert to the possibility of the error contrary to Scotism in this matter which would be the negation of the sixth condition. Billuart examines the objections denying this condition.

Objection. Just as an evil work is of itself deserving of punishment independently of the ordination of the judge, so a work of charity possesses of itself something of worth commensurate to a reward, and that not by any divine ordination or promise. But merit is nothing other than a work of worth equal to a reward. Therefore this sixth condition is not necessary.

Reply. I deny the major: there is no comparison between a good work and an evil work; for the latter, in offending, injures the right of another by its very offense, wherefore, without any ordination of the judge, there arises an obligation to repair the injured right. On the contrary, the good work of charity is already due to God the Creator and Lord; and, for man to possess the right of exacting a recompense requires a special ordination of God; because God has no obligation except to Himself, and this by reason of His promise. Hence, if God had commanded us to do good without promise of a reward, He would not be bound to grant it to us.

Doubt. Whether God grants a reward to merits only in faithfulness to His promise, or in justice.

Reply. Not only out of faithfulness but in distributive justice, which however has something of the mode of commutative justice. For St. Paul declares: “As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord the just judge will render to me in that day” (II Tim. 4:8). This is because, although a simple promise produces only the obligation of faithfulness, a promise to be fulfilled by the promiser on condition of some laborious work, carries an obligation of justice. Thus “to pay the reward of labor is an act of justice” (Ia IIae, q. 21, a. 3). This is not the commutative justice which exists between equals, for man can give nothing to God which is not already His and under His dominion. But it is distributive justice whereby a superior gives to his inferiors, not equally but proportionately, each according to his worth and merit. Nevertheless it is a certain kind of commutative justice, according as God gives commensurately, and so also in imposing punishment for demerit.

WHAT IS INCLUDED UNDER MERIT (A. 6-10)

Beside eternal life, which is the essential object of merit (cf. a. 2), the question is raised in articles 5-10, which of several other objects fall under merit. The two principles that elucidate this second part of the question may be formulated thus: The just man can merit that to which his merit is ordained by God; but the principle of merit itself does not fall under merit. 

By virtue of the first principle, the just man can merit for himself de condigno: eternal life, increase of grace and charity, and the degree of glory proportionate to this increase. This is of faith. It is explained theologically according as the merits of the just man are ordained by God to eternal life and to the spiritual progress which leads to it (a. 8). The just man can likewise merit de congruo, in the strict sense, the grace of conversion for another, as St. Monica did for St. Augustine (a. 6) The just man can also merit temporal goods, not for their own sake, but so far as they are useful for salvation (a. 10).

However, since the principle of merit itself does not fall under merit, man cannot merit for himself, either de condigno or de congruo in the strict sense, the first grace, whether actual or habitual. This is a truth of faith which can be explained theologically by the foregoing principle (a. 5). Moreover, the just man cannot, before he falls, merit for himself the grace of conversion, should he subsequently fall into sin; for his merits are taken away by mortal sin which follows them.  In other words, the restoration of the principle of merit does not fall under merit (a. 7). 

Nor can the just man merit for himself de condigno nor strictly de congruo the grace of final perseverance. This is almost of faith; it is explained theologically according as the grace of final perseverance is no other than the state of grace (or principle of merit) preserved by God at the very moment of death (a. 9).