Second Question: On the Conditions of Supernatural Merit

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 114, a. 1, 2, 3, 4.

194. Thesis. For 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 with liberty of election, that is, not only from coercion but also from intrinsic necessity (cf. condemned proposition 3 of Jansenius): for merit is a property of a moral act, which is the more moral the more voluntary and free it is. Moreover, retribution is not due to someone except because he himself gives from what is his own in service of the one rewarding; but no one properly gives from what is his own except that of which he is master; and man is not master of his act except that which he acts freely;

2. good or honorable (Mt. VI, 1 sq.) at least formally, for before God, infinitely holy, nothing is worthy of reward unless it is good and right; besides, if evil merits anything, it is not reward but punishment;

3. supernatural and therefore placed from grace; otherwise it would not be proportioned to the supernatural reward of eternal life (Council of Trent, 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. But it is done in service of God because 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; Mk. IX, 40; Lk. IX, 48; Gal. V, 6, 14; St. Thomas, I-II, q. 114, a. 4.

B. On the part of the one operating:

5. the state of the wayfarer: for one who has arrived at the term and end and possesses it can no longer move and tend toward it or approach it more closely; therefore he cannot merit it. The state of the way has its end with temporal life, as we know with certainty from revelation and from the faith of the universal Church (II Cor. V, 10; Heb. IX, 27; Mt. XXV, 1 sq.; Jn. IX, 4; Lk. XVI, 9, 22; Gal. VI, 10);

6. the state of grace (condemned propositions 12, 15, 17, 18 of Baius; Council of Orange II, can. 18; Council of Trent, sess. 6, c. 16, can. 32): for the value and dignity of a work is principally from the dignity of the one operating (Gen. IV, 4); if therefore he himself is not worthy of eternal life through habitual grace making him pleasing, he is not suited for placing works worthy of eternal life (Jn. XV, 4).

C. On the part of God rewarding:

7. acceptance or preordination of the work unto a wage and a kind of promise, at least implicitly contained in the bestowal of grace. Not that the good work has intrinsic value or condignity from that acceptance, but because beyond the condignity which it has from grace, an ordination or promise concerning merits to be accepted and concerning the wage to be rendered is necessary, so that he who has operated well from grace may have a right to the wage and God may be obligated to render it to him from justice.

Among men no one is bound from justice to remunerate service, however worthy in price, unless he has accepted it and thus has at least tacitly taken on the obligation of repaying. But acceptance is much more required on the part of God, who of Himself is not obligated by any works of men to render a wage, 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 from God every power of operating and our very act; therefore in no way can God be our debtor. But, when an ordination or promise has been added, He is now a debtor of Himself, and He is bound not toward us but toward Himself, insofar as He owes it to His own wisdom, fidelity, and will to fulfill in creatures what by free will He has appointed to give them, and according to the proportion of works to bestow upon the works the reward established (Jas. I, 12; II, 5; Mt. XX; I Tim. IV, 8; Heb. X, 36; Council of Trent, sess. 6, c. 16). Therefore condignity depends upon the internal value of the work, the acceptance of God being presupposed: this does not deny the value of the work, but brings it about that to the work, which by reason of its value is worthy of reward, this reward is now actually due from God by justice (a. 1).

Hence there does not exist justice strictly so called between God and men according to absolute equality, because our works can confer nothing upon God, since their whole goodness (being, ability, and the very operating) is conferred gratuitously by His ordination in such a way that He could claim it for Himself (a. 1). Yet, this preordination having been posited, if the meritorious value of works is considered according to the power of the Holy Spirit moving us unto eternal life and according to the dignity of grace by which man is a sharer of the divine nature and an adoptive son to whom the inheritance of eternal life is due, there is present an 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 wage of eternal life and divine like it (a. 3). Whence eternal life by comparison to the proximate cause, or the works of the just, is a wage due from justice; but by comparison to the remote cause, namely, the power of operating and grace from divine ordination, it is a gift of mercy (Council of Trent, sess. 6, c. 16 and sess. 14, c. 8).

195. In what way meritorious works must be ordered to the service of God.

Not all declare this in the same way:

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

b) Better, however, with the Thomists and Bellarmine, it is said that this suffices for merit de congruo; but for merit de condigno there is required an influence from an act of charity: for through that we strictly merit the attainment of the end through which we tend to the end, the Supreme Good as such; but we do this through charity alone, by which we tend to the Supreme Good in Himself. Practically, nevertheless, this opinion does not differ so much from the preceding, because the influence of charity is always present: 1) by way of object or motive: for an act of charity, once exercised and not retracted by mortal sin, refers all the following acts of the whole life to God the supernatural end, and, if perhaps not all honorable acts, at least all which are proportioned to the supernatural end and are supernatural from motive and principle; 2) also by way of principle, because acts of the supernatural virtues 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, with very great probability several say further that by this single act of charity all honorable 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 exercising charity an act is either supernaturally good and meritorious, or a venial sin. This seems to be the opinion of St. Thomas, De Malo q. 2, a. 5, ad 7, and II Sent. d. 40, q. 1, a. 5.

1. Thus also outside the Order of Preachers several hold, such as the Salmanticenses, Billot, Van Noort, Van der Meersch, Raphael of St. Joseph; to whom His Eminence Cardinal Van Roey comes close.

d) Yet for this the mere presence of the habit of charity cannot suffice, as it seemed to some, such as Ballerini, Noldin, Vermeersch, but its exercise is required, because, as St. Thomas says, II Sent. d. 40, q. 1, a. 5, ad 6, "from the fact that it is in habit no one merits, but from the fact that he actually operates."

e) Finally, some, such as St. Bonaventure and St. Alphonsus, require that the act of charity be repeated rather often, for example, daily or weekly, or even for each series of actions; and because of the probability of this opinion it is to be counseled that it be exercised more often.

196. Degrees of merit.

Salutary 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, the merit becomes greater:

1. the worthier the acting person is, according to the supernatural dignity of habitual grace making one pleasing, by which man is pleasing to God;

2. the more voluntary the work is, that is, the more it proceeds from a readier will and is performed with greater intensity; and the freer it is, that is, the more the agent gives of his own and from his proper dominion;

3. the more the work is informed by charity, namely, the more expressly, more proximately, and more actually it is referred to God; hence the practice is best of often exercising an act of charity and offering works to God in order to increase merit, and also to increase charity itself, the root of merit;

4. the better the work is according to species, excellence, and nobility of moral goodness, which nobility depends upon the object; for example, the act is better which regards a more excellent virtue, which has a higher end, which pertains to several virtues. Therefore a precept does not impede merit; indeed obedience increases merit because it adds the goodness of a new virtue;

5. and therefore the more difficult the work is in itself: namely, intrinsic difficulty, which is from the magnitude and arduousness of the work itself and from the elevation of the proper object, increases merit, because the better something is, the more it is elevated above man's powers. But extrinsic difficulty of labor, which the agent experiences in a good work and which comes from a defect of the one operating and of a ready will, does not increase but rather diminishes merit. Otherwise the more someone advanced in virtue and experienced less difficulty, the less merit he would have. Yet per accidens a special difficulty on the part of the agent can be the occasion that someone tends toward good with greater attention and with a greater effort of the 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. Observation.

For congruity of merit in order to a certain supernatural retribution, the same conditions are required, excepting the state of grace, the influence of charity, and the promise of God; yet this promise, like the state of grace, is required for merit de congruo more strictly so called and infallible, which namely consists in a friendly right to some reward, without equality of the work to the reward ever being required.