Merit&grace alone?

[fineca]

Hi,
I just listened to the wonderful discussion on the Bible Answer Man featuring James White and James Akin, and one of the issues discussed was of course justification and the Catholic Akin said that Catholics believe in grace alone and that even merit is to be seen as a work of God’s grace and God’s grace alone. It is the last part of this that bothers me, since the Catechism states:
2025 We can have merit in God’s sight only because of God’s free plan to associate man with the work of his grace. Merit is to be ascribed in the first place to the grace of God, and secondly to man’s collaboration.

SO it seems that according to the Church it is not God’s grace alone that we ascribe merit but God’s grace primarily and secondarily to the collaboration of the believer.

Could someone wiser than me give an explanation and show how Akin’s statement is compatible with the Catechism, or does Catholic Answers have a wrong idea of the Catholic doctrine?
Thanks!
e

 

[Atreyu]

Hi,
I just listened to the wonderful discussion on the Bible Answer Man featuring James White and James Akin, and one of the issues discussed was of course justification and the Catholic Akin said that Catholics believe in grace alone and that even merit is to be seen as a work of God’s grace and God’s grace alone. It is the last part of this that bothers me, since the Catechism states:
2025 We can have merit in God’s sight only because of God’s free plan to associate man with the work of his grace. Merit is to be ascribed in the first place to the grace of God, and secondly to man’s collaboration.

SO it seems that according to the Church it is not God’s grace alone that we ascribe merit but God’s grace primarily and secondarily to the collaboration of the believer.

Could someone wiser than me give an explanation and show how Akin’s statement is compatible with the Catechism, or does Catholic Answers have a wrong idea of the Catholic doctrine?
Thanks!
e

What Akin said is correct. The “man’s collaboration” part is referring to the free will of man. Each particular man has to respond positively to this grace. However, it takes grace to say yes to God! There is no way we can do a good work apart from the grace of God, and by a “good work”, this includes any and every positive responce to the grace of God.

 

[fineca]

but if grace cooperates with the free will, then it’s not grace alone but grace and the collaboration of the free will

 

[drforjc]

St. Augustine said that in crowning our merits God is crowning His own gifts. So our collaboration is itself a grace.
I don’t see a contradiction.

 

[drforjc]

St. Augustine wrote that in crowning our merits He is crowning His own gifts. So our collaboration is itself a grace.
I don’t see a contradiction here.

 

[Vincent]

Man’s free collaboration with grace is itself a gift of grace. Without grace, man’s collaboration can’t be initiated, sustained or completed.

God can thus say to man, “Well done, my good and faithful servant” (c.f. Matthew 25:21), which highlights the secondary ascription of merit. However, man’s collaboration-- the reception of grace-- is totally contingent on grace in the first place.

Thus it’s Grace from beginning to end. For that reason, Jimmy Akin’s use of “Grace alone” is not incorrect.