Question on merit

[Vinny213]

A priest said the following things to me about merit. Is he correct in what he says?
As for “meriting eternal life”, without understanding what the RCC means by merit here, one will waste one’s time. They teach that we merit, not because our good works done by faith are intrinsically worth eternal life insofar as they proceed from us, but because God has promised to reward them eternally in his grace. The eternal reward is thus “due” by promise, not equity of value. See the Parable of the Sheep and Goats and the Parable of the Talents for Christ’s teaching on eternal “reward”. The RCC also teaches that the promise to reward, and the ability to do works, are themselves unearned graces.

 

[davidv]

A priest said the following things to me about merit. Is he correct in what he says?
As for “meriting eternal life”, without understanding what the RCC means by merit here, one will waste one’s time. They teach that we merit, not because our good works done by faith are intrinsically worth eternal life insofar as they proceed from us, but because God has promised to reward them eternally in his grace. The eternal reward is thus “due” by promise, not equity of value. See the Parable of the Sheep and Goats and the Parable of the Talents for Christ’s teaching on eternal “reward”. The RCC also teaches that the promise to reward, and the ability to do works, are themselves unearned graces.

This seems to be very consistent with this paragraph for the Catechism:

2008 The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. The fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man’s free acting through his collaboration, so that the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful. Man’s merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ, from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit.

 

[Vinny213]

He said this as well:

Second, it gives the impression that salvation is earned by saying that Christians can merit Heaven. This tends to be misleading even when all the traditional RC qualifications of the word “merit” are taken into account. Briefly, these qualifications are: That there is no strict right in equity for humans to any reward based on their good deeds, since these deeds are imperfect, finite, and assume a prior unmerited forgiveness of sins. That what reward is owed human beings is owed because of gratuitous divine promise rather than natural equity. That the only element of human action truly worthy of such reward (and thus able to be attributed with “condign merit”) is the inspiration by the Holy Spirit that caused the action. (These traditional qualifications may be found in Aquinas and other authoritative sources, such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church.) So, when the RCC says a Christian merits heaven, they mean no more than what St Paul means in Galatians 6:7-10 and 2 Timothy 4:7-8. That is, good works done in the power of the Holy Spirit lead to eternal life because God is faithful to his gracious promise. That promise includes both an acquittal from the Divine Judge for Christ’s true disciples, and a reward for them also based on their works.

 

[Ad_Orientem]

He’s right, it’s a waste of time to debate whether we can merit heaven, without defining what “merit” means. He explains well the Catholic doctrine that our merit (due to sanctifying grace) is not in strict justice, but gratuitous.

What sort of priest is he? If he is a Catholic priest, it’s a little odd for him to speak of our Church as “the RCC” and “they.”

 

[Vinny213]

He is anglo-catholic.

 

[john330]

He said this as well:

Second, it gives the impression that salvation is earned by saying that Christians can merit Heaven. This tends to be misleading even when all the traditional RC qualifications of the word “merit” are taken into account. Briefly, these qualifications are: That there is no strict right in equity for humans to any reward based on their good deeds, since these deeds are imperfect, finite, and assume a prior unmerited forgiveness of sins. That what reward is owed human beings is owed because of gratuitous divine promise rather than natural equity. That the only element of human action truly worthy of such reward (and thus able to be attributed with “condign merit”) is the inspiration by the Holy Spirit that caused the action. (These traditional qualifications may be found in Aquinas and other authoritative sources, such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church.) So, when the RCC says a Christian merits heaven, they mean no more than what St Paul means in Galatians 6:7-10 and 2 Timothy 4:7-8. That is, good works done in the power of the Holy Spirit lead to eternal life because God is faithful to his gracious promise. That promise includes both an acquittal from the Divine Judge for Christ’s true disciples, and a reward for them also based on their works.

An outstanding exegesis. You claim no religion?

 

[MarcoPolo]

I think he is correct. Although I think our works that have “been graced” are themselves the works of the Lord, and thus have an eternal value. But he is certainly correct that we do not produce of ourselves “works” that merit eternal salvation. For more on merit from the Church’s perspective in detail, check out the Council of Trent, session 6. Keyword “merit” once you are on that page.

 

[fhansen]

He said this as well:

Second, it gives the impression that salvation is earned by saying that Christians can merit Heaven. This tends to be misleading even when all the traditional RC qualifications of the word “merit” are taken into account. Briefly, these qualifications are: That there is no strict right in equity for humans to any reward based on their good deeds, since these deeds are imperfect, finite, and assume a prior unmerited forgiveness of sins. That what reward is owed human beings is owed because of gratuitous divine promise rather than natural equity. That the only element of human action truly worthy of such reward (and thus able to be attributed with “condign merit”) is the inspiration by the Holy Spirit that caused the action. (These traditional qualifications may be found in Aquinas and other authoritative sources, such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church.) So, when the RCC says a Christian merits heaven, they mean no more than what St Paul means in Galatians 6:7-10 and 2 Timothy 4:7-8. That is, good works done in the power of the Holy Spirit lead to eternal life because God is faithful to his gracious promise. That promise includes both an acquittal from the Divine Judge for Christ’s true disciples, and a reward for them also based on their works.

But if you read davidv’s CCC quote you’ll see that synergism is still always at work, as it is in the Parable of the Talents to name one biblical teaching. Man can always reject the grace that would result in the merit-or he can cooperate with it.

 

[Vinny213]

Can someone tell me the difference between strict merit and condign merit? I am a bit confused about these two concepts and their differences.

 

[mab23]

sounds right to me!

 

[Ad_Orientem]

Can someone tell me the difference between strict merit and condign merit? I am a bit confused about these two concepts and their differences.

Strict merit and condign merit are the same thing. The reward is equal to the work done. It is owed in justice (like an hourly wage). The other kind is congruous merit; the reward is not strictly owed, and the amount depends on the generosity and discretion of the giver (like a tip).

Okay, the analogy’s not perfect, but hopefully you get the idea.

The Catholic Encyclopedia has a good article on merit.

 

[Vinny213]

I thought that strict merit and condign merit are distinct. Robert Sugenis and Jimmy Akin say they are distinct.
. Sungenis: So we see again that the encyclopedia makes the distinction between “strict justice” and “meritum de condigno.” It understands the former as analogous to “contracts between employer and employee, in buying and selling,” which is the same analogy St. Paul used in Romans 4:4 when he spoke about work being a matter of debt.

Still, condign merit does have some kind of claim attached to it, but it is a claim that can only be based on God’s promise to reward not on a contract that binds God to pay the worker. I can claim, for example, that I have a right to heaven, but I make the claim only on the fact that God promised to give me heaven if I do what he requires. I cannot make the claim, however, by demanding that God pay me by contract, a contract devoid of God’s personal promise but is only a legal agreement. Promise and law are two different things, as Paul argues in Romans 4:13.

Akin said this:
One thing it is important to realize about condign merit is that, even though God has promised to reward the at, that does not mean that the act has an intrinsic value equal to the reward it is receiving. If I perform an act of charity and God gives me a heavenly reward in the next life by giving me an additional level of supernatural beatitude, the value of the act I perform in no way equals the value of the beatitude. There may be a proportionality that can be drawn between the amount of charity God’s grace has led me to exercise in this life and the amount of beatitude I get in the next life, but there is no equality between the two values.

The reasons that there is no equality and thus the intrinsic value of God’s rewards always immeasurably exceeds the intrinsic value of our merits is that, as Anselm pointed out in his Cur Deus Homo, the value of an act is proportional to the value of the person making it. Thus I, as a finite being, could never make the infinite atonement Christ did on the Cross (even if I was sinless and always had been). It took a Person of infinite value — the Son of God — to make an infinite satisfaction. Similarly, I, a finite creature, can never merit anything of infinite value, but the beatitude which God bestows upon us in the afterlife is of infinite value because it will be enjoyed for all eternity.

 

[Vinny213]

22 The Canons of Cologne in the manual which they added to the Council of Cologne held in the year 1536 under the title De Justiftcatione thus write The Scripture is not afraid to call life eternal the reward of good works not that we shoidd suppose our good deeds to be worthy of life eternal or that life eternal is due to them in consequence of the worthiness of the works themselves for who is so stupid as to entertain such notions But rather because to our faith which by these works he set in exercise within us it is that God has freely promised life eternal.

Aquinas says this:
For philosophises ibid arfc 1 Justice is a kind of equality and therefore absolute justice obtains only among those between whom there is an absolute equality But in those in whom there is merely a relative and not an absolute justice there does not exist any absolute principle of merit Now it is manifest that between God anji man there is the greatest inequality and therefore there cannot be any merit on the part of man before God except so far as the appoint rnent of God is recognised that is so that a man attains from God by his performance of good works as a reward that for which God has previously imparted to him the power of performing them.

 

[Ad_Orientem]

I thought that strict merit and condign merit are distinct. Robert Sugenis and Jimmy Akin say they are distinct. . . .

I stand corrected. Here’s what Fr. John A. Hardon says in his Modern Catholic Dictionary:

condign merit
Due to a person for some good he has done. Generally applied to merit before God, who binds himself, as it were, to reward those who do his will. The conditions for condign merit are the state of grace and a morally good action. The beneficiary is the person who performs the good act and not someone else. Condign merit is based on the revealed fact that God has promised such a reward. Thus we condignly merit an increase of the virtue of faith by every act of faith we perform in the state of grace. (Etym. Latin con-, thoroughly + dignus, worthy: condignus, very worthy.)

congruent merit
Also called appropriate merit, it is any good deed that deserves reward on any one or more of a variety of grounds, but not in strict justice or fidelity to a promise. Thus friendship, compassion, kindness, and responding to a request are grounds for congruent merit.

Evidently the important difference is that condign merit is a reward for fidelity to a promise, whereas congruent merit is not. There are also, implicitly, rewards owed in strict justice (if we can call them rewards), but that would be a third category and, now that I think about it, probably not applicable to God.

 

[Ad_Orientem]

I thought that strict merit and condign merit are distinct.

Just realized I gave the wrong distinction. Fr. Dominic Prümmer writes (source):

1. Merit, both condign and congruent, is subdivided into strictly and less strictly said.

Strict condign merit or condign merit of strict justice is an act, which is utterly equivalent to the reward obtained, which hence cannot be refused without a manifest injury to justice. Such condign merit strictly said is the fitting and stipulated pay for a faithful servant. In the supernatural order only the acts of Christ had condign merit strictly said. For the actions of Christ, who was God and man, were entirely worthy of an infinite reward.

Condign merit broadly speaking belongs to good works done in the state of sanctifying grace. In this manner, e.g. a just man merits eternal life, since there is a certain worthiness {condignitas} and parity (but not in every way) among the works done from grace and eternal life.

And while we’re at it…

Congruent merit strictly speaking includes a true congruity among the work and the reward, e.g. from congruity someone just can merit conversion for a sinner; “For since a man constituted in grace fulfils the will of God, it is fitting {congruum} according to the proportion of friendship, that God fulfil the will of the man in the salvation of another (S. Th. I-II q. 113, a. 6).”

Congruent merit broadly speaking agrees to all works, even generally one that is nothing other than a certain impetration {intercessory prayer}. Thus a man that is a sinner from the good works done with actual grace congruently, broadly speaking, can merit the state of sanctifying grace.

Whether there be a further category of “strict merit” that is neither condign nor congruent I do not know, but it seems doubtful now. Anyone?

 

[Vinny213]

So according to Father Dominic does codign merit still has some type of covennat attached to it or some divine promise? Also according to him there is no real strict equality between heaven and our merits right?

 

[teeboy]

A priest said the following things to me about merit. Is he correct in what he says?
As for “meriting eternal life”, without understanding what the RCC means by merit here, one will waste one’s time. They teach that we merit, not because our good works done by faith are intrinsically worth eternal life insofar as they proceed from us, but because God has promised to reward them eternally in his grace. The eternal reward is thus “due” by promise, not equity of value. See the Parable of the Sheep and Goats and the Parable of the Talents for Christ’s teaching on eternal “reward”. The RCC also teaches that the promise to reward, and the ability to do works, are themselves unearned graces.

What is RCC?

I believe the ccc post no2. Merit comes from doing the Father’s will.

I look to St. Joseph as a role model.

 

[teeboy]

So according to Father Dominic does codign merit still has some type of covennat attached to it or some divine promise? Also according to him there is no real strict equality between heaven and our merits right?

I understand merit to gain one a higher place in heaven. It’s like being in the king’s court as oppossed to being a peasant in the Kingdom. All are still subject to the king.

 

[Ad_Orientem]

So according to Father Dominic does codign merit still has some type of covennat attached to it or some divine promise?

Good question, I don’t know. It seems someone could merit a reward (of some kind) without there being an explicit promise attached to it.

Also according to him there is no real strict equality between heaven and our merits right?

Definitely, and not just according to him. I don’t think *any *Catholic theologian asserts that we actually deserve Heaven in strict justice.

 

[Vinny213]

Does condign merit imply that our works are equal or proportionate to the reward of eternal life? I know that Bellermine thought so, but what do modern catholic scholars and theologians say?