God's Grace and Human Action: 'Merit' in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas

304 Pages·2016·6.83 MB·English

by  Joseph P. Wawrykow

God's Grace and Human Action

God's Grace and Human Action
'Merit' in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas
Joseph P. Wawrykow
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
Copyright© 1995 University of Notre Dame
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wawrykow, Joseph Peter.
God's grace and human action : 'merit' in the theology of Thomas
Aquinas I by Joseph Peter Wawrykow.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographic references.
ISBN 13: 978-0-268-01031-5 (hard: alk. paper)
ISBN 10: 0-268-01031-5 (hard: alk. paper)
ISBN 13: 978-0-268-04433-5 (pbk: alk. paper)
ISBN 10: 0-268-04433-3 (pbk: alk. paper)
1. Merit (Christianity) 2. Grace (Theology) 3. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint.
1225?-1274-Contributions in theology. I. Title.
BT773.W38 1995
234-dc20 95-18777
CIP
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability
00
of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council
on Library Resources.
Contents
Preface vi
Acknowledgments x
Chapter 1. The Literature on Merit and Related Concepts 1
Section I. The Literature on Merit 6
Section II. The Literature on Related Concepts 34
A. Grace and Merit 34
B. Hope and Merit 56
Chapter 2. The Early Teaching on Merit 60
Section I. The Scriptum Super Libras Sententiarum 60
A. In II d. XXVII q. I, aa. 3-6 63
B. In III d. XVIII 101
C. Hope and Merit 129
Section II. De Veritate 137
Chapter 3. The Mature Teaching on Merit 147
Section I. The Background to the Discussion of Merit 149
A. God's Creative and Redemptive Plan 149
B. Grace 164
Section II. Merit in the Summa: I-II 114 (and related texts) 177
Section III. The Merit of Angels, and, of Christ 233
Section IV. Hope (and Merit) 247
A Summa Theologiae 247
B. Other Writings of the Mature Period 255
Chapter 4. Concluding Observations: Thomas and His Authorities 260
Section I. Aquinas and Augustine 266
Section II. Thomas and Scripture (especially Paul) 276
Selected Bibliography 285
Preface
IN THE FOLLOWING PAGES, I have examined 'merit' in the theological
writings of Thomas Aquinas. Medieval discussions of merit are important
for at least two reasons. Taken in itself, the treatment of merit can provide
an important barometer of central theological and anthropological convic­
tions-about medieval notions of the dignity and possibilities of human
existence, about the seriousness with which different authors consider the
fact of sin and its lingering effects even in the life of the justified, and about
the ways in which God can come to figure in human existence through
grace. But the medieval discussions have taken on added significance
because of their use in the Reformation and since. Luther's insistence on
"justification by faith alone" was at the same time an attack on Catholic
claims about the religious value of morally good acts; the sixteenth-century
Catholic rejection of Luther also entailed the re-affirmation of the notion
of merit, with its official proclamation at the Council of Trent.
It is thus not surprising that modern scholars, both Protestant and
Catholic, have shown a certain fascination with merit. Some of the medie­
val analyses of merit, so significant in the working out of the divisions
between the churches during the Reformation, have as a result been
studied in considerable detail and indeed adequately. One might cite here
the researches of Werner Dettloff into the teachings on merit ofScotus and
Ockham and their followers, work that has found its echo in other scholars
such as Bernd Hamm. 1 But while the topic of merit not been wholly
neglected, it is the underlying conviction of this book that the teachings of
Thomas Aquinas about merit have only imperfectly been understood.
Indeed, that Thomas had more than one teaching on merit, corresponding
to different stages of his theological development, has itself not been
sufficiently appreciated. The imperfect state of research on Thomas's
approaches to merit has thus had a twofold effect. The main lines of
Thomas's soteriology, including his sense of the precise roles played in
human salvation by God and the human person, remain only partially
1 Werner Dettloff, Die Lehre von der Acceptatio divina bei Johannes Duns
Scotus mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung der Rechtfertigungslehre (Werl,
1954), and Die Entwicklung der Akzeptations- und Verdienstlehre von Duns
Scotus bis Luther (Munster, 1963); Bernd Hamm, Promissio, Pactum,
Ordinatio (Tiibingen, 1977). I have subjected Hamm's discussion of Aquinas
on merit to critical scrutiny in my first chapter.
Preface vii
sketched. And lacking a precise depiction of what Thomas himself taught
or an explanation of the version of merit that had evolved by the time of
the Summa Theologiae, evaluations of the reception of Thomas-in the
later middle ages, during the Reformation, indeed, even in the present­
remain stuck at a somewhat elementary stage.
The present close study of Aquinas on merit accordingly has a twofold
audience in mind. The book is directly addressed to those who seek to
understand more adequately an important part of Thomas's theology,
viewed in its own terms. The primary goal of the book is to delineate the
precise function performed by merit in Aquinas's account of salvation and,
concomitantly, to chart the development in his understanding of merit
evident in the course of his theological career. This study has been moti­
vated by my concern to evaluate Thomas's success in combining his
assertion (in this teaching on merit) of the religious value of human action
done in obedience to God's will with his unequivocal affirmation (at least
by the time of the Summa Theologiae) that human salvation at every stage
(predestination, initial justification, perseverance on the path to God,
beatitude) is dependent on the free and gracious involvement of God in the
life of the individual.
It is hoped that a second set ofreaders will also find this book of interest,
those concerned primarily with the Reformation and the later reception of
high medieval teachings. By necessity, however, my book must stay for
these readers at the level of an invitation to further study, merely sugges­
tive of the value of a better-informed examination of the ways in which
later theologians encountered the thought of Thomas Aquinas on merit.
Comparative comments are kept to a minimum in this book; apart from
some suggestions about the differences between Thomistic ordinatio and
Scotist acceptatio, I have not brought Thomas into dialogue with other
medieval authors. Nor do I attempt here to demonstrate that later medie­
val and Reformation responses to Thomas, even those of his self-described
adherents, may fall short oft he mature teaching in significant ways. Before
establishing his teachings, that argument would undoubtedly have been
premature. Rather, mindful of the need for a thorough study of Thomas
himself, I have been forced to be content with the careful, at times
painstaking, re-evaluation of what Thomas wrote on merit. The invitation
to scholars of the later middle ages and of the Reformation to reconsider
the fate of the mature teaching comes, then, precisely in the delineation of
this rather distinctive account of merit. My suspicion, one that needs
testing by others, is that Thomas's later readers, both Catholic and Prot­
estant, were in fact blind to much that was crucial in the mature teaching.
Armed with this analysis of Aquinas on merit, modern scholars of the
Reformation will perhaps be inspired to investigate anew the quality of
later readings of Thomas on merit and grace.2
2 For the attempt to show what light might be cast by this new interpretation
of Thomas's mature teaching about merit on the teaching of John Calvin, an
viii GOD'S GRACE AND HUMAN ACTION
In preparing this study it did not suffice to examine only the ex professo
treatments or major passages on merit in Thomas's corpus. Rather, I have
read through Thomas's theological writings virtually in their entirety,
impelled by the conviction that one can fully understand Thomas on merit
at different stages of his career only when familiar with the development
in his positions on such related doctrines as providence and predestination,
grace, and hope. As will become evident over the course of the book, the
genesis apparent in Thomas's teaching about merit to a large degree
mirrors that in these related doctrines. Tempting as it is, with the advent
of the Index Thomisticus, to allow the computer to do one's research, what
might be gained in "statistical accuracy" through exclusive reliance on the
Index would, in the end, be more than offset by a loss of a feel for the texture
and flow of Thomas's theological argument. Sensitivity to Thomas's con­
cerns and to the spirit of his theology of merit can be achieved only by
studying in their entirety the works in which Thomas discusses merit.
Attention to the changing nuances in his analysis of the crucial related
concepts which serve as the background to merit and to the inter-relation­
ships between these concepts and merit makes it possible to know what
Thomas means by merit and determine why he has proposed the teaching
which he has. Hence, I turned to the Index only at the end of my study of
the writings themselves to insure that no pertinent texts had been over­
looked and, moreover, to see whether Thomas had also discussed merit in
any unexpected places (he does not).
The book is divided into four chapters. The first, through its extensive
and sometimes detailed orientation to the literature, indicates the assured
results of earlier research into merit (and related concepts), the questions
that remain open, and the main lines of argument that will be pursued in
the subsequent chapters. The first chapter also provides the opportunity
to acknowledge my debt to such scholars as Lynn and Pesch (on merit),
Bouillard and Lonergan (on grace), and PfUrtner (on hope). The second and
third chapters offer close readings of the discussions of merit in the various
works of the Thomistic corpus, considered in rough chronological order;
hence, in Chapter 2, I discuss Thomas's teaching about merit in the
Scriptum Super Libros Sententiarum, and, in the De Veritate, and, in
3
Chapter 3, his analysis in the Summa Theologiae. The structure of these
avowed opponent of Thomas on merit, about sanctification, see my "John
Calvin and Condign Merit," Archiv fii.r Reformationsgeschichte 83 (1992):
73-90.
3 Of the three major systematic works (the Scriptum on the Sentences of Peter
Lombard, the Summa Contra Gentiles, and the Summa Theologiae) only the
Summa Contra Gentiles, written between 1259 and 1264, lacks an extensive
analysis of merit. In this work, Thomas is content to make only brief
comments about merit, to the effect that it pertains to God's providence to
reward and punish and thus that human activity can merit the reward of
heaven offered by God; see Book III, chapters 139 and 140. However, the
Summa Contra Gentiles is in many ways a seminal work, for in it Thomas
Preface ix
chapters differs slightly. By the time of the discussion of merit in the
Summa Theologiae, Thomas has developed an account of merit that is
thoroughly integrated into his basic understanding of God-human rela­
tions and of human salvation. Hence, before turning in the third chapter
to the extended comments in the Summa on merit, it is first necessary to
set the stage, beginning the chapter with Thomas's ideas about creation
and grace. The discussion of merit in the earlier Scriptum and the De
Veritate, on the other hand, stands on its own, and hence I have proceeded
in Chapter 2 directly to the early account of merit. The final chapter is
much more tentative and speculative in tone; here, I briefly suggest how
the contemplation ofThomas's use of his principal sources, Augustine and
scripture, may shed additional light on the genesis and inspiration of the
mature teaching.
To anticipate the main claims: Certain features ofThomas's thought on
merit remained constant throughout his career. "Juridical" aspects are
always present. In the Scriptum and in the Summa, 'merit' consistently
refers to the establishment of a right in justice to a reward from God. This
view of merit is scripturally based in that Thomas advances a teaching on
merit to explicate the biblical texts affirming God's just reward of good
behavior. Even more striking, however, are the new insights informing
Thomas's mature teaching about merit. First, the Summa emphasizes
predestination and grace. The person who merits before God has been
freely chosen by God to enjoy eternal life. Moreover, as the result of God's
free predestination, God grants the elect the grace required to move him
to the actions meritorious of eternal life. The new stress on predestination
and grace reflects both Thomas's speculative gains on grace and the will
and his reading of certain decisive writings of the later Augustine, in
particular the De Praedestinatione Sanctorum and the De Dono Perseuer­
antiae. Second, the Summa delineates the sapiential dimensions of merit.
In accordance with the plan of the divine wisdom, God employs meriting
to manifest the divine goodness in a special way, by the salvation of the
individual through his meritorious actions. Thomas's portrayal of merit in
sapiential terms permits him to conclude that the attainment of salvation
though merits testifies not only to the dignity oft he human person but even
more to the goodness of God.
has fashioned new descriptions of concepts which will figure prominently in
the formulation of his mature teaching on merit. It is in the Summa Contra
Gentiles that he ascribes to providence and predestination for the first time
a causal certitude which extends not only to general effects but even to all
individual events. Moreover, he replaces in the Summa Contra Gentiles the
relatively static view of grace offered in the Scriptum with a much more
dynamic understanding, which stresses God's direct application of the human
person to activity. Thus, in the following chapters, attention is drawn in the
appropriate places to the contribution of the Summa Contra Gentiles to the
changes in Thomas's theology of grace and of the relations of God and the
human person.