Thomas on Merit

Commenting on ST I-II, q. 109, Frederick Bauerschmidt says that Thomas uses the word “merit” analogically when we speak of God rewarding human action “since we can act in the first place only because God has given us the capacity to act.” This applies even to Jesus: “even when Thomas speaks of Christ as a human being meriting on our behalf, it is in the context of speaking of the grace that was bestowed upon Christ as the head of the church, and which Christ shares with us. In other words, meric always, even in the case of Christ, presumes the gift of God’s grace.” Merit is “a matter of convenientia,” that is, “it is ‘fitting’ . . . that God respond to certain actions in certain ways.”

With regard to Christ, however, there is a notable difference: “Because the grace by which Christ merits salvation for himself and others is not simply the grace of ‘adoption’ but that of ‘union’ (i.e., he is not simply an adopted son of God, but God the Son, the second Person of the Trinity) Thomas says . . . that the reward God gives Christ is not simply ‘fitting’ (de congruo) but a matter of justice (de condigno).”

These two points might seem to be in tension – merit always presupposes grace, yet Christ can merit condignly. The key point is that even in meriting condignly, Christ’s work presupposes grace, the “grace of union” by which the Son unites Himself to the humanity. Christ’s human meriting of salvation is thus dependent on the incarnation, a gracious act of the Triune God.