First Article. On The Nature Of Merit

100. Definition. Merit, considered abstractly, is that property of a human action by force of which it is worthy of reward or punishment: for a good action done in service of another is worthy of reward, but an evil action which redounds to the detriment of another is worthy of punishment. Merit, considered concretely, is a work worthy of reward or punishment. Therefore some work has the character of merit by the fact that it redounds to the good or detriment of another. Theological merit is a work which before God is worthy of reward or punishment; but more precisely that is called theological merit which, known from revelation, is referred to the supernatural end of eternal life, concerning which the words hold: for God renders to each one according to his works.¹

The moral goodness or malice of a human act, insofar as it redounds to the service or offense of God, is the cause of merit; reward or punishment is the effect of merit. In theological usage, the merit of a good act is commonly understood under the name merit, while the merit of an evil act is customarily called rather demerit.

¹ Rom. 2:6; Matt. 16:27.

101. Division. a. Merit is divided into natural and supernatural, according as it is ordered to a natural reward, which consists in goods of the natural order, or to a supernatural reward, which consists either solely or chiefly in supernatural goods. Natural reward belongs to works which are performed by the powers of nature alone; for since all morally good actions redound to the glory of God, they are worthy of retribution. But in this order of nature elevated through grace, no other merit and reward is considered except supernatural, which belongs to works that are done from grace.

b. It is divided into merit de condigno, to which wages are due from justice because its value is equal to the reward, and merit de congruo, to which wages are due only from a certain fittingness because its value is not equal to the reward. The former is also called perfect, the latter imperfect; the former is the merit of the just, the latter also belongs to sinners.

A twofold distinction intervenes between merit de condigno and merit de congruo: a. with regard to the value of the work: a work to which merit de condigno belongs is equal to the reward, not indeed with mathematical equality but with moral equality, or, as St. Thomas has it, with equality of virtue: "as the seed of a tree, in which there is the virtue unto the whole tree."¹ In merit de congruo, the reward surpasses the value of the work. b. With regard to the right to reward: in merit de condigno, on the part of the one meriting there is a right to the reward and a debt of justice on the part of the one rewarding; in merit de congruo, wages are bestowed only from a certain equity, and if the reward is owed because of a promise on the part of the one rewarding, it is owed only from fidelity.

c. As regards the infallibility of merit, it depends upon the divine promise. Now every merit de condigno, because of the divine promise joined to it, is infallible; but merit de congruo is one kind infallible, another fallible, according as a divine promise is or is not joined to it. Thus a sinner through the ultimate disposition for sanctifying grace merits this grace de congruo infallibly, but not through a remote disposition.

d. By reason of the good which is repaid in the homeland, it is divided into essential or substantial reward, which contains: a. eternal life or the beatific vision universally; b. increase of glory or greater grades of the beatific vision; and accidental reward, which contains all goods which besides the beatific vision come to the blessed in the heavenly homeland, and which are called secondary: the three aureoles (of martyrs, doctors, and virgins); familiar fellowship of the angels, the blessed, and the very queen of heaven; the vision of the humanity of Christ; joy concerning one's own body; a singular place assigned to the saints in heaven.

¹ Cf. Summa I-II, q. 114, a. 3, ad 3.