Merit

Merit, taken objectively, is something earned,something owed to a person. Taken subjectively, merit is the right of a person to his earnings, to what is owed him. Now, man cannot by his own nature set up a right towards God, and demand by the law of justice that he be paid for anything he has done. Yet God has been pleased to allow man what creatural nature cannot achieve of itself. God has provided that man can have merit, and can establish a just claim for supernatural reward. The basis ofthis blessed situation lies in the fact that human free will,although moved by unmerited grace, actually does cooperate with God’s will in accepting and using grace.

Eternal life (that is, the enjoyment of the beatificvision forever in heaven) is something beyond the power of any created nature to achieve unaided. Even in his primal state of innocence, man could not merit eternal life by his natural powers. For meriting eternal life, supernatural grace is absolutely necessary.

There are two types of merit, condign merit and congruous merit. Condign merit is the right in strict justice to a reward. Congruous merit is not so much a right as a claim; it rests upon what is suitable or fitting in a situation; itis a kind of deserving rather than an earning. Now, in so far as aman’s meritorious work is human, although performed in and by grace, it can merit only congruously. But in so far as themeritorious work is God’s work in man, it can merit condignly,and thus establish a right to eternal life. By his grace, God makes us participators in the divine nature; he makes us his adopted children; he makes us “sons of God.” And St. Paul says(Rom. 7:17): “If sons, heirs also.” And thus we can merit our inheritance as God’s children; we can merit eternal life.

The meriting of eternal life by grace comes first by charity; and under charity, by the other virtues.

Man cannot merit the first grace which justifies him. For tohave merit, man must have grace; merit is the fruit of grace. Hence the first grace, the grace which removes the guilt of sin and establishes the soul in the state of grace, is imparted to the soul by God, with no right or claim on man’s part to demand or deserve it.

No one but Christ can condignly merit the first grace for another. But a man in the state of grace, praying and offering good works for the justification of another person, may set up a claim for God’s mercy towards that person. Thus one may merit congruously, but never condignly, the first grace for another.

A man who sins mortally cuts himself off from God and from all claims on God. He cannot merit his own restoration to grace, either condignly or congruously. Nor can a man in the stateof grace merit his own restoration in case he should commit mortal sin at some future time. For mortal sin, if it comes, will destroy all existing merits.

But a man in grace can, by using present grace,condignly merit further grace; that is, a man in grace cancondignly merit increase in grace.

The special grace of final perseverance cannot bemerited. It is the free gift of God to those who will receive it.

Man cannot merit temporal goods except in so far as these are needed for virtuous works that lead to heaven.