I explained here recently that “Reformed theology presently has no middle position between mere covenantal [i.e. extrinsic] union, and a fusion that obliterates the Creator-creature distinction.” In “Nature, Grace, and Man’s Supernatural End: Feingold, Kline, and Clark,” I wrote:

One problem with a merely covenantal notion of union with Christ is that it reduces heaven to the equivalent of Abraham’s bosom. (Luke 16:22) A merely covenantal union with Christ is what we have now in this present life, and what the saints in Abraham’s bosom had as well. It is not the Beatific Vision. Hence if [Scott] Clark holds that in the eschatological consummation our union with Christ is only covenantal, and not ontological, then his position denies the possibility of attaining heaven, and offers to men in its place something infinitely lower. But if he admits that in the consummation our union with Christ is ontological, then he has no principled reason for claiming that grace cannot be a participation in the divine nature in addition to divine favor.

In other words, the difference between the Protestant and Catholic conceptions of grace (see here) leads to different conceptions of what heaven is and what is our essential happiness in heaven. If grace is mere favor, and union with God is only covenantal, then the happiness of heaven is having Christ and the saints near us forever, and being free from sin in our souls, and free from suffering and death in our bodies forever. But if grace is a participation in the divine nature, then the essence of eternal life is union with God in the Beatific Vision, which is not everlasting existence, but is eternity itself, namely, the “simultaneously-whole and perfect possession of interminable life.”¹ Any Protestant conception of ‘heaven’ without the Beatific Vision is something like Abraham’s bosom or the Garden of Eden, and is infinitely surpassed by the supernatural happiness of the Beatific Vision, God’s own infinite happiness. But that supernatural end requires grace as a participation in the divine nature, not merely divine favor. (Cf. Scott Clark’s claim that grace is merely divine favor.)

On December 14, Professor Lawrence Feingold of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology and author of The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and his Interpreters and the three volume series The Mystery of Israel and the Church gave a lecture titled “The Beatific Vision” to the Association of Hebrew Catholics. This is the last lecture in his series on God’s gracious elevation of man to the divine life. The audio recordings of the lecture and of the following Q&A session, along with an outline of the lecture and a list of the questions asked during the Q&A are available below. The mp3s can be downloaded here.

Lecture: The Beatific Vision

Spe Salvi (1′)

Eternal life is not merely continuing to live forever
Most people don’t have the faintest idea of what eternal life is.

Lawrence Feingold

What eternal life is not (4′)

Our final end has to involve a relationship of love with someone who transcends us (14′)

What eternal life is (14′)

Why our final end can lie only in God (15′)
Objective end and subjective end (18′)

Three different ways of knowing and loving God (20′)

Knowing God perfectly requires seeing God through the Logos (26′)

The Beatific Vision is infinitely above what we can presently imagine or conceive (29′)

He enlarges the receiver, so it can receive the living God (32′)
Sanctifying grace, the seed of glory (33′)

Growing in this life in our awareness of our ignorance of heaven (35′)

The essence of heaven (36′)

Dante on heaven (38′)
1 Cor 13 (39′)
Psalm 36 (45′)

Perfect love — spousal love, total self-giving (46′)

St. John of the Cross (51′)

Heaven is being inserted into the Trinitarian Life (56′)

Eucharist as the image of heaven (59′)

Eternity [not time without end] (62′)

Who receives the Beatific Vision? (65′)

The Last Judgment (69′)

The New Jerusalem (74′)

Questions and Answers

1. Is sanctifying grace finite? (1′)

2. Is time in purgatory endless days? (5′)

3. In this life one of our greatest pleasures is discovery. Will discovery be part of the beatific vision? (7′)

4. On Mt. Tabor, three of the Apostles were privileged to see Jesus in His glorified state. Was that a glimpse of the beatific vision, or a glimpse of his glorified body? (9′)

5. Is there any change or growth within the beatific vision? (12′)

6. Why is it then that we need a Last Judgment if we’ve already had a particular judgment? (17′)

7. In that returning back to God what we’ve received from Him, could that be understood like a person who has been blessed by education or medicine to be a teacher or a doctor, in order to give that gift back? (18′)

8. What is a vomitorium? (19′)

9. Do the parents stand in for the child in asking for faith [at the child's baptism], because they are in the mystical body, because they have the sacrament of marriage, or something else? (20′)

10. How do we know that there is an ultimate good instead of an ultimate frustration? (21′)

11. What part will the resurrected body have in the beatific vision? If the beatific vision is our essential happiness, why do we need the resurrection of the body? (26′)

12. Is the state of heaven for those souls now in heaven less perfect or less complete because the Last Judgment has not occurred? (28′)

13. Did God change in the incarnation? If God is immutable, how could He become man? (29′)

1. Summa Theologica I. Q.10 a.1.

Lecture: Sufficient and Efficacious Grace (November 30, 2011)

Lawrence Feingold

The question: What makes actual grace efficacious or inefficacious? (1′)

What is the meaning of ‘efficacious’? (1′ 50″)

What is the meaning of ‘sufficient’? (4′)

Is there an intrinsic difference between sufficient-but-inefficacious grace and sufficient-and-efficacious grace? (5′)

For Lutherans, Calvinists and Jansenists, all grace is intrinsically efficacious, and God does not give such grace to the reprobate. (6′)

The heresy of limited atonement (9′)

Does God command the impossible? (10′)

See Denzinger 2001, 2002, 2005 (here.)

The Controversy over Grace and Free Will Between the Dominican and Jesuit Schools (12′)

Molina — there is no intrinsic difference between efficacious grace and merely sufficient grace.
Báñez — there is an intrinsic difference between efficacious grace and merely sufficient grace.

Domingo Báñez

Position of Báñez (20′)
Description of the position of Báñez (20′)
Four problems with the Position of Báñez (22′)

1. Seems excessively close to Calvinism/Jansenism (22′ 38″)
2. Seems to annihilate free will, with respect to self-determination
3. Seems that ‘sufficient grace’ is not truly sufficient (24′)
4. Seeming incompatibility with God’s universal salvific will (25′)

Position of Molina and the Jesuit School (33′)

How sufficient grace is truly sufficient
How this position preserves the sovereignty of God (34′ 50″)
How this position differs from Calvinism (37′)
Role of St. Ignatius of Loyola (39′)

Luis Molina

Objections to the Jesuit position (40′)

The charge of Pelagianism (40′)
The principle of predilection (51′)

On the Concern about Boasting (58′)

Why boasting is excluded
Why, in Calvinism, the sinner could accuse God for not giving sufficient (irresistible) grace (60′)

Two Models of God’s Providence (64′)

(a) God moves all creatures with intrinsically efficacious movements.
(b) God infallibly governs free creatures by giving resistible graces, knowing infallibly our cooperation or refusal to cooperate.

Questions and Answers

1. What about vocational graces? Aren’t these specific, and are they operative or cooperative? (1′)

2. Could you comment on the enormous pressures against cooperating with grace in our very secularized culture? (10′)

3. If Christ died for us all, why does the change in the new liturgy say “died for many”? (13′ 54″)

4. God doesn’t waste anything. So why does He give graces that He knows will not be used? (16′)

5. What is it about the Báñezian position that avoided the label of heresy if it is so similar in your view to Calvinism? (21′ 47″)

6. If God knows our choices by foreknowledge, and not by decree, how does that avoid putting passivity in God, who is Pure Act? (24′ 25″)

7. What makes free will free? (30′)

8. Couldn’t God have placed the reprobate in situations in which He knows that they would freely choose Him? If so, then why didn’t He do so, since He wills all men to be saved? (33′ 13″)

9. Why did God give the devil a chance to tempt us? It seems that we have enough trouble for ourselves? (36′)

10. Perhaps we shouldn’t say that we block or annihilate grace, but that by sinking into nothingness, I become a subject in which grace has no effect. There is nothing for grace to work on. (39′ 32″)

11. Is an action that is done with mixed motives something that can block grace? (41′)

12. What do we do if we are not in St. Francis’ position of thinking we’re the worst person in the world? (43′)

Scenes from the Life of Joachim and Anna
Master of Alkmaar (c. 1500)

The Evangelical statement reads as follows:

Immaculate Conception. Evangelicals find unnecessary and unbiblical the notion that Mary was preserved from the stain of original sin from the first moment of her conception. Still, we affirm much of what this teaching is intended to convey—that Mary was the object of God’s gracious election in Christ; that she was uniquely prepared to become the mother of our Lord; that she is an extraordinary model of the call to discipleship and the life of holiness; that her assent to the purpose of the Lord was itself the result of God’s unmerited favor toward her—an example of sola gratia; and that she should be honored and called “blessed one” in all places and by all generations.

Much interconfessional discussion has centered on the Greek kekaritomene of Luke 1:28 which the Vulgate renders gratia plena and the Douay-Rheims version as “full of grace.” In its clearest form, this perfect passive participle expresses divine favor in the passive voice, as in the King James Version: “Hail thou that art highly favoured” (cf. Luther, holdselige, and Calvin, agréable). Luke 1:28 does not mention Mary’s conception, though Scripture does teach that God’s redemptive call can take place before birth or even conception (Jer. 1:5; Gal. 1:15).

The concrete manifestation of divine favor occurred through the descent and overshadowing of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35), whose sanctifying activity enabled Mary’s response of faith and thus inaugurated the renewal of all creation in her womb (Luke 1:38). Calvin affirms this point by stating that “to carry Christ in her womb was not Mary’s first blessedness, but was greatly inferior to the distinction of being born again by the Spirit of God to a new life” (Commentary on the Harmony of the Gospels, 42). By divine grace alone Mary was enabled to give birth to the Son of God, and from her alone he received his human nature. It is not to be doubted that this was wrought by the power of God in a way no less miraculous or mysterious than the virginal conception itself.

Immaculate Conception is not accepted as a dogma by the churches of the East and was much debated in the West before and after the Reformation. Augustine held to a high view of the personal holiness of Mary but believed that God’s abundant grace was conferred on her “for vanquishing sin in every part” (On Nature and Grace 36.42). The idea that Mary was conceived without original sin was rejected by Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Thomas Aquinas, among other notable teachers of the Church. Their thinking about Mary deserves fresh consideration.

Evangelicals confess the sinlessness of Christ but not the sinlessness of Mary. Hebrews 7:26 refers to Jesus as our High Priest. He alone was perfectly holy, blameless, unstained, separated from sinners. The Bible makes clear that no other human being can claim this (John 8:46; Rom. 3:23, 5:12; 1 Cor. 15:22; 2Cor. 5:21; Eph. 2:3; Heb. 4:15). Jesus taught his disciples, among whom Mary was the first, to pray “Our Father who art in heaven . . . forgive us our trespasses” (Matt. 6:12). The Bible declares that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and he was the Savior as well as the son of his blessed mother (1 Tim. 1:15; Luke 1:46–47).

What disagreements lie behind the disagreements stated here by Evangelicals concerning the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception? I find five underlying disagreements.

The first is the notion that only what is explicitly stated in Scripture, or follows by logical entailment from what is taught explicitly in Scripture, is necessary for Christians to believe. That can be seen in the claim that “Evangelicals find unnecessary … the notion that Mary was preserved from the stain of original sin from the first moment of her conception.”¹ (emphasis mine) The Catholic teaching, by contrast, is that the deposit of faith comes to us through both Scripture and Tradition. See “Sola Scriptura: A Dialogue Between Michael Horton and Bryan Cross VIII. Scripture and Tradition.” Therefore, from this Catholic perspective a doctrine not being explicitly stated in Scripture does not make it unnecessary.

The second underlying disagreement visible here is the notion that Tradition is not an authoritative guide in the interpretation of Scripture, but is instead itself judged by the interpretation of Scripture one arrives at apart from that Tradition. That notion can be found in two claims made in the Evangelical statement above. Evangelicals find the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception “unbiblical” because in their view (a) “The Bible makes clear that no other human being can claim [to be perfectly holy, blameless, unstained, separated from sinners]. (John 8:46; Rom. 3:23, 5:12; 1 Cor. 15:22; 2Cor. 5:21; Eph. 2:3; Heb. 4:15), and (b) “The Bible declares that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and he was the Savior as well as the son of his blessed mother (1 Tim. 1:15; Luke 1:46–47)”

Regarding the second claim, Evangelicals assume that since Christ was the Savior of His Mother, therefore it must follow that was a sinner, and that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is false. But that conclusion does not follow, as Lawrence Feingold explains in “Mary’s Immaculate Conception, drawin from Scotus.”² Through His Passion, Christ gloriously saved His Mother by preventing her from falling into original sin and actual sin.

Evangelicals think Mary was not sinless, on account of their interpretation of five verses:

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Rom 3:23)

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned— (Rom 5:12)

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Cor 15:22)

Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. (Eph 2:3)

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. (Heb 4:15)

Evangelicals assume that the ‘all’ (and ‘our’ in the Hebrews passage) in each case is intended to include Mary, because they do not find in Scripture any exegetical evidence to justify qualifying the extension of the term to everyone but Mary. Then having concluded that the ‘all’ must include Mary, they claim that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is “unbiblical,” i.e. contrary to Scripture. And they thereby conclude that the Tradition regarding the doctrine of Mary’s Immaculate Conception must be the result of a false accretion that worked its way into the Church’s beliefs and liturgical practices. What is therefore at work in this claim that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is contrary to Scripture is the notion that Scripture is to be interpreted only by Scripture, apart from Tradition, and then the interpretations thus attained are the standard by which Tradition is to be judged. The Catholic position, by contrast is that Tradition is the authoritative guide for the interpretation of Scripture, and therefore informs us that the ‘all’ should be interpreted as qualified. (See “The Tradition and the Lexicon.”)

The third underlying disagreement concerns the nature of grace. Evangelicals view grace as only divine favor, whereas in Catholic doctrine grace is not only divine favor, but also the divine gift God gives as a result of that favor, namely, a participation in the divine nature. (See “Lawrence Feingold on Sanctifying Grace and Actual Grace.”) This difference in our conceptions of grace changes how we understand the implication of Luke 1:28. A conception of grace as mere divine favor allows for a simul iustus et peccator view of Mary’s soul even while Gabriel is speaking to her or at any other point in her life. But a Catholic understanding of grace as participation in the divine nature, along with Luke 1:28, not only indicates a prior infusion of grace, but allows a Catholic to see Christ as Mary’s Savior through preventing her at every moment from being deprived of sanctifying grace.

The fourth underlying disagreement is an implicit denial of the development of doctrine. This can be seen in the Evangelicals’ claims that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception “is not accepted as a dogma by the churches of the East and was much debated in the West,” and “The idea that Mary was conceived without original sin was rejected by Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Thomas Aquinas.” Their appeal to these facts as evidence that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is false presupposes that doctrine does not develop. If doctrine develops, as St. Vincent of Lérins describes in his Commonitory, and Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman describes in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, then the fact that at some earlier time not all Christians recognized or affirmed it is not in itself evidence that it does no belong to the Tradition.

The fifth underlying disagreement in this Evangelical statement regarding the Immaculate Conception concerns the basis of ecclesial authority. When the Evangelicals assert that the reasoning by which St. Bernard and St. Thomas rejected the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception “deserves fresh consideration,” they are not only implicitly denying the development of doctrine; they are also denying the magisterial authority of the Catholic Church, because Pope Pius IX infallibly defined the dogma in 1854, writing:

Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: “We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.” (Ineffabilis Deus)

Moreover the Evangelical statement implicitly affirms the ecclesial authority of Calvin and Luther. The statement not only appeals to Luther’s and Calvin’s translations of terms, but writes, “Calvin affirms this point by stating that “to carry Christ in her womb was not Mary’s first blessedness, but was greatly inferior to the distinction of being born again by the Spirit of God to a new life.” Why do Luther’s and Calvin’s opinions come up in an explanation by Evangelicals of their reasons for not accepting the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception? The appeals to Luther and Calvin demonstrate performatively that these Evangelicals believe that Luther and Calvin hold some kind of ecclesial/interpretive authority. But Catholics do not believe that Luther or Calvin had ecclesial/interpretive authority. So one more disagreement underlying Evangelicals’ disagreement with the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is the basis for ecclesial/interpretive authority. For Evangelicals, that authority reduces to agreement with their own interpretation of Scripture.³ For Catholics, that authority comes through apostolic succession.⁴

Conclusion

The resolution of a disagreement, and especially a seemingly intractable disagreement, typically requires locating the underlying disagreements that are the fundamental source and cause of the disagreement in question. In this case, the Evangelical statement concerning their disagreement with the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary reveals five underlying disagreements: (1) the notion that only what is explicitly stated in Scripture, or follows by logical entailment from what is taught explicitly in Scripture, is necessary for Christians to believe, (2) the notion that Tradition is not an authoritative guide in the interpretation of Scripture, but is instead itself judged by the interpretation of Scripture one arrives at apart from that Tradition, (3) the notion of grace is merely divine favor, (4) an implicit denial of the development of doctrine, and (5) the notion that ecclesial authority is grounded in agreement with one’s interpretation of Scripture and not in apostolic succession in union with the episcopal successor of the one to whom Christ gave the keys of the Kingdom. Subsequent attempts to resolve the Evangelical-Catholic disagreement concerning the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception will require turning to these underlying disagreements.

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, 2011.

1. This assumption is also manifested in the statement that “Luke 1:28 does not mention Mary’s conception.”
2. For more detail, see Volume XX of Scotus’s Lectura in Librum Tertium Sententiarum (Q.1 dis. 3), titled “Utrum Beata Virgo fuerit concepta in peccato originali (whether the Blessed Virgin was conceived in original sin).
3. See “Solo Scriptura, Sola Scriptura, and the Question of Interpretive Authority.”
4. “Sola Scriptura: A Dialogue Between Michael Horton and Bryan Cross, IX. Apostolic Succession.

The Elect
Luca Signorelli (1499-1502)

Lecture: Predestination and Perseverance (November 16, 2011)

Lawrence Feingold

When we talk about predestination, we always have to keep in mind God’s universal salvific will. (1′)

What does predestination add to God’s universal salvific will? (2′)
A summary of the meaning of the word ‘predestination’ in Catholic doctrine (2′ – 5′)

Predestination includes foreknowledge, and is a part of divine providence. (6′)

Predestination has only one fundamental cause: God’s love. (7′)

Predestination is the part of God’s eternal plan by which the just reach their supernatural end through a series of graces God has prepared for them.

Predestination has two elements:

(a) God’s gracious aid directing us to an end we cannot reach ourselves, and
(b) foreknowledge of our correspondence with His grace. (9′)

St. Augustine’s definition of predestination: (11′)

St. Thomas Aquinas on predestination: (13′)

It is fitting that God should predestine men. For all things are subject to His providence, as was shown above (Question 22, Article 2). Now it belongs to providence to direct things towards their end, as was also said (Q. 22, a.1, ad 2). The end towards which created things are directed by God is twofold; one which exceeds all proportion and faculty of every created nature; and this end is life eternal, that consists in seeing God which is above the nature of every creature, as shown above (Question 12, Article 4). The other end, however, is proportionate to created nature, to which end created being can attain according to the power of its nature. Now if a thing cannot attain to something by the power of its nature, it must be directed thereto by another; thus, an arrow is directed by the archer towards a mark. Hence, properly speaking, a rational creature, capable of eternal life, is led towards it, directed, as it were, by God. The reason of that direction pre-exists in God; as in Him is the type of the order of all things towards an end, which we proved above to be providence. Now the type in the mind of the doer of something to be done, is a kind of pre-existence in him of the thing to be done. Hence the type of the aforesaid direction of a rational creature towards the end of life eternal is called predestination. For to destine, is to direct or send. Thus it is clear that predestination, as regards its objects, is a part of providence. (Summa Theologica I, a.23, a.1)

Example of the arrow and archer (14′)

The idea or blueprint in the mind of God of the way by which we will be saved is predestination. (19′)

Two causes of predestination: one primary, the other secondary (20′)

Reprobation (21′)

Predestination in the Letters of St. Paul (22′)

Romans 8:28-31 (23′)

We know that in everything God works for good with those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the first-born among many brethren. And those whom He predestined He also called; and those whom He called He also justified; and those whom He justified He also glorified. What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us? (Rom 8:28-31)

The set of those called, is not the same set as those justified, because some reject the actual grace given to them. Example of the wedding feast (29′)

Difference between foreknowing and predestining (32′)

Calvinist interpretation of the passage (33′)

Ephesians 1:3-6 (34′)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. He predestined us in love to be His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. (Eph 1:3-6)

Relation between predestination, the Incarnation, and the Church (37′)

Election and predestination in an ecclesiological sense (38′)

1 Corinthians 2:7-9 (39′)

We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed [predestined] before the ages for our glorification. . . Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him. (1 Cor. 2:7-9)

1 Thessalonians 5:6-10 (42′)

For you are all sons of light and sons of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. … But, since we belong to the day, let us . . . put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we wake or sleep we might live with Him. (1 Thess. 5:6-10)

St. Paul’s notion of predestination was already contained in the Old Testament understanding of the election of the Jews. (45′)

Parable of the sower: election isn’t enough; there has to be perseverance. (48′)

Two senses of the term ‘election’ (49′)

God Does Not “Predestine” Anyone to Hell (50′)

Distinction between predestination and foreknowledge (51′)
God has a universal salvific will, but not all are predestined; only those who cooperate (54′)

Predestination according to Luther and Calvin (54′)
Luther and Calvin’s notion of predestination differs in two fundamental ways from the Catholic doctrine of predestination.

(1) Double predestination (54′)

Why did Luther hold this? Because he denied free will. (57′)
In his On the Bondage of the Will, Luther wrote: (58′)

Now the highest degree of faith is to believe that He is merciful, though He saves so few and damns so many; to believe that He is just, though of His own will He makes us perforce proper subjects for damnation, and seems (in Erasmus’ words) “to delight in the torments of the poor wretches.”

In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin wrote: (59′)

By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which He determined within Himself whatever He wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death. (Institutes of the Christian Religion, III.21.6)

The problem here is the notion of irresistible grace. (62′)

(2) Luther and Calvin deny our ability to cooperate with grace. (63′)

The Lutheran and Calvinist thesis of double-predestination was condemned at the Council of Trent: (64′)

If anyone says that the grace of justification is shared by those only who are predestined to life, but that all others who are called are called indeed but receive not grace, as if they are by divine power predestined to evil, let him be anathema. (Session VI, Canon 17)

Predestination and God’s Antecedent and Consequent Will (64′)

St. Thomas explains this in Summa Contra Gentiles III 159-161: (66′)

[S]ince one cannot be directed to the ultimate end except by means of divine grace, without which no one can possess the things needed to work toward the ultimate end, such as faith, hope, love, and perseverance, it might seem to some person that man should not be held responsible for the lack of such aids. Especially so, since he cannot merit the help of divine grace, nor turn toward God unless God convert him, for no one is held responsible for what depends on another. Now, if this is granted, many inappropriate conclusions appear. (SCG III.159.1)

To this problem St. Thomas replies:

To settle this difficulty, we ought to consider that, although one may neither merit in advance nor call forth divine grace by a movement of his free choice, he is able to prevent himself from receiving this grace: Indeed, it is said in Job(21:34): “Who have said to God: Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of Your ways”; and in Job (24:13): “They have been rebellious to the light.” And since this ability to impede or not to impede the reception of divine grace is within the scope of free choice, not undeservedly is responsibility for the fault imputed to him who offers an impediment to the reception of grace. In fact, as far as He is concerned, God is ready to give grace to all; “indeed He wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” as is said in 1 Timothy (2:4).But those alone are deprived of grace who offer an obstacle within themselves to grace; just as, while the sun is shining on the world, the man who keeps his eyes closed is held responsible for his fault, if as a result some evil follows, even though he could not see unless he were provided in advance with light from the sun. (SCG III.159.2)

Final Perseverance (71′)

Second Council of Orange: (72′)

God’s help is always to be sought even for the regenerated and holy, that they may come to a happy end, or that they may continue in the performance of good works. (Denz. 183)

Can Final Perseverance be Merited? (73′)

St. Thomas addresses this in Summa Theologica I-II, q. 114, a.9.

Can the Faithful Have Complete Assurance of Final Perseverance? (75′)

Luther taught that faith had to include faith in one’s own justification. (76′)
Calvin taught that faith had to include faith in one’s own final perseverance to glory. (77′)

The problem with the claim that faith must include belief in one’s own final perseverance (77′)

The Council of Trent condemned this: (77′)

Canon 15. If anyone says that a man who is born again and justified is bound ex fide to believe that he is certainly in the number of the predestined, let him be anathema.

Canon 16. If anyone says that he will for certain, with an absolute and infallible certainty, have that great gift of perseverance even to the end, unless he shall have learned this by a special revelation, let him be anathema. (Session VI)

St. Francis de Sales on God’s Universal Salvific Will (79′)

First He willed, with a genuine will, that even after the sin of Adam all men should be saved, but in a way and with means suited to the condition of our nature, which is endowed with free-will; that is to say He willed the salvation of all those who would contribute their consent to the graces and favours which He would prepare, offer and distribute for this purpose. Now, among these favours, He willed that the call be first, and that it should be so accommodated to our freedom that we might at our good pleasure accept or reject it. And to those whom He foresaw would receive it, He willed to give the sacred movements of repentance; and to those who would follow those movements He determined to give holy charity, those again who were in charity, He purposed to supply with the helps necessary to persevere, and to such as should make use of these divine helps He resolved to impart final perseverance, and the glorious felicity of his eternal love. … Without doubt, God prepared heaven only for those whom He foresaw would be His. … But it is in our power to be His: for although the gift of being God’s belongs to God, yet this is a gift which God denies no one, but offers to all, and gives to those who freely consent to receive it. (Treatise on the Love of God, 3.5)

Questions and Answers

1. In light of all you have said, then why do we pray for anyone else? (1′)

2. The gospel readings of last Sunday and this morning dealt with the servants receiving talents from their master. How does that relate to predestination? (3′)

3. God knowing from the beginning who and how many would be saved, why didn’t He set the bar lower, to save more? (7′)

4. How did Luther and Calvin ever give the early Protestants incentive to love God more or live moral lives if it didn’t matter or change predestination? (10′)

5. Paul himself seemed to know that he himself was saved. How is that possible? (13′)

6. Because the Church allows many views on this subject, can you distinguish the view of the Dominican Bañez from that of Calvin? (14′)

7. I understand that God gives sufficient grace for all to be saved, but it seems unfair that God gives more grace to some than to others. It seems the ones that He gave more grace to would have a better chance at salvation than someone to whom He gave less grace. (17′)

8. Shouldn’t Jesus have said more accurately “All are called and some are chosen”? (21′)

9. What does it mean that Herod and Pilate were predestined to do what God had planned to take place (Acts 4:28)? (23′)

10. What about Jude 4, which speaks of present persons long ago “designated” for condemnation? (25′)

11. Why does St. Paul say regarding Jacob and Esau that God chose Jacob over Esau before either had done anything good or bad (Rom 9:11)? (27′)

12. Why doesn’t the notion that men can successfully resist God’s grace detract from His omnipotence? If He really wants all men to be saved, why doesn’t He overwhelm all men with irresistible grace? (33′)

13. If God’s knowledge is the cause of what happens, rather than the other way around, how can man’s response to grace be the cause of God’s foreknowledge of who is predestined? (37′)

14. What about Limbo? (39′)

Mark Galli

His reasoning begins with a notion of the early Church as “Massive confusion.” He writes, “The Holy Spirit set the pattern for what church would be like at the day of Pentecost. And it looked like this: Massive confusion.” For Galli, the New Covenant introduced “radical leveling” such that there was no magisterium, and widespread doctrinal disagreements, often taking decades to resolve. No decisions by Apostles or councils were authoritative. The Apostles tried to use their authority to settle disputes, but the best they could do was appeal to Scripture just as any other Christian could. Doctrinal disagreements were eventually resolved by Christians who “lived and argued together at the prodding of the Holy Spirit,” without any magisterium. Galli concludes, writing, “We don’t need a magisterium. We already have a Lord, who told us that not even the gates of Hades (whose landlord loves to sows confusion in the church!) will prevail against the church. In short, we don’t need premature closure as much as we need persevering confidence that the Spirit will lead us into all the truth we need, when we need it.”

Did the Early Church have a Magisterium?

Of course having a magisterium is useful, but the utility of having a magisterium is no reason to become Catholic. Ultimately, one should become Catholic only if the Catholic Church is the Church Christ founded, and thus only if the authority of the Catholic magisterium is a divinely established authority, having been established by the incarnate Christ before His Ascension. If the Catholic magisterium was not established by Christ, then the Catholic magisterium is not even useful, because it has no authority at all, and thus cannot authoritatively adjudicate any question whatsoever. But if the Catholic magisterium was established by Christ, then the due response is not determining whether having this magisterium is useful, but submitting to it, as an expression of our submission to Christ who governs His Church through it.

So the right starting question is whether Christ established a magisterium (i.e. a teaching and governing authority) in His Church. For Galli, the day of Pentecost is the paradigm, and he sees there only chaos and confusion. But that conclusion may itself be premature. Between Christ’s Ascension and Pentecost, the only event Scripture records is the filling of Judas’ office, under the leadership of St. Peter. That would have been superfluous and misguided if in a few days there would be a radical leveling that eliminated any magisterium. In fact, nothing about Pentecost is disordered. Those persons who did not understand the other languages the Apostles were speaking were possibly bewildered by the fact that simple men from Galilee were able to speak foreign languages. The event itself, however, was not “massive confusion” but well-ordered for the very purpose that persons of all different languages could hear and believe the one message the Apostles were preaching, not a multiplicity of contrary teachings. The purpose of the birth of the Church at Pentecost was precisely to ‘unconfuse’ the separation and confusion God had sent on prideful man at the Tower of Babel.¹ If the Church were to be “massive confusion,” that would not be any different from the post-Babel situation; disorder and confusion cannot possibly rectify disorder and confusion.

And there is evidence in Scripture not only of order, but of a magisterium. About seventeen years after Pentecost, when a dispute arose in the universal Church, we see in Acts 15 that it was settled in an orderly way at the Jerusalem Council attended by Apostles and elders. And in his first letter to the Corinthians St. Paul writes clearly, “for God is not a God of confusion [ἀκαταστασίας -- disorder] but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.” (1 Cor. 14:33) A few verses later he writes: “But all things must be done properly and in an orderly [τάξιν] manner.” (1 Cor 14:40) To see only confusion on the day of Pentecost and in the early Church is to miss the clear evidence that Christ gave authority to His Apostles, and that they authorized others to succeed them in governing and teaching the particular Churches so that all things would be done in an orderly manner, and that there was an established means by which the unity and peace of the Church would be preserved.²

Confidence in the Holy Spirit Requires not Co-opting the Holy Spirit

According to Galli, even though there was no visible order or structure in the early Church, nevertheless the Spirit always continued to lead the Church into all truth, not only in that first generation of Christians but even down to the Evangelicalism of the present day. He writes:

But even after they [i.e. the Apostles] spoke or wrote, the church had to go through a period of discernment to determine what the Holy Spirit was, in fact, teaching the church. … The full sweep of church history suggests that the Holy Spirit has, in fact, led us into all truth through no other way than men and women, slave and free, Jew and Gentile wrestling with one another about whatever issue is at hand until, in the Spirit’s good time, a consensus emerges. … We mustn’t forget that for a couple of hundred years, most Christians were not Trinitarians in the way we understand the Trinity today, but the Holy Spirit slowly led the church into a fully Trinitarian faith.

Galli’s notion of the Spirit continually and faithfully leading the Church into all truth is something that Catholics also deeply affirm.³ But there is a fundamental incompatibility in Galli’s position, because the notion that the Holy Spirit continually “guides the Church into all truth” justifies the “confidence” of which Galli speaks only if the Church has visible, institutional unity. The claim that “the Church” had to determine something is an objective claim only if “the Church” has a visible unity as a single institution. Otherwise, the claim reduces to “those with whom I agree reached the conclusion with which I agree.” By denying the existence of a magisterium, Galli is left to pick out “the Church” by way of agreement with his own interpretation of Scripture. And there is no basis for confidence that the Holy Spirit is uniquely leading that group of persons into all truth, because any group of heretics could make the very same claim.

For example, the reason the Arians could not credibly claim that the Church had to go through a period of discernment to determine that the Holy Spirit was, in fact, teaching the Church that Arianism is true, that after the Nicene Council the Church continued only with those in the Arian tradition and that those persons who followed the decision of the Council were the heretics who were thereby separated from the Church, is precisely that the visible Church made this decision at that Council by way of the magisterium of bishops in communion with the episcopal successor of the Apostle Peter.

Similarly, the monophysites could not credibly claim to be the continuation of the Church by the leading of the Holy Spirit precisely because the magisterium of the Church decided against monophysitism at the Council of Chalcedon ratified by Pope Leo. And the same is true of each of the heresies the Church faced in her early centuries. A magisterial decision made it possible for the claim that the Holy Spirit is guiding the Church to be an objective claim, rather than a relativistic claim made by one of multiple parties, each attempting to co-opt the ‘guidance’ of the Holy Spirit to support their own particular interpretation of Scripture.

For claims about the Holy Spirit leading “the Church” to determine something to be objective claims, rather than merely self-serving attempts to co-opt the Holy Spirit to support the emergence of one’s own interpretations and theology, the Church must be visible and visibly one. Yet the Church can have a visible unity as a single institution only by way of a hierarchical unity, i.e. only if there is a magisterium, for the reasons Tom Brown and I explained in “Christ Founded a Visible Church.”

Confidence and the Consensus Criterion

Galli claims that “a consensus emerges,” but he does not include the “among whom” qualifier. A consensus did not emerge among the conjunction of those following the decision of the Council of Nicea and those following Arius. The magisterial decision against the Arians forced the Arians out of the visible Church, and thus did not allow Arianism to be even a “branch within” the Church. A consensus did not emerge between Catholics and Marcionites; rather, the magisterial decision by the Church of Rome forced the Marcionites out of the visible Church, and again did not allow Marcionism to be a “branch within” the Church. And so on, with all the heresies throughout Church history.

In order for the “a consensus emerges” criterion to be meaningful as a basis for confidence that this consensus is the result of the Holy Spirit’s guiding, this consensus must be distinguishable in principle from the sort of consensus that heretics can attain among themselves. But without a magisterium, the only kind of consensus possible is a consensus of precisely that sort, i.e. a consensus among those who agree with oneself and one’s own interpretation. Without a magisterium, any heretical group could claim to be the Church, and could claim that its own heretical beliefs are the result of what the Holy Spirit gradually taught the Church, and could claim that consensus was reached among those who agree with their particular heresy. When heretical groups make such claims, each claiming to be the Church uniquely led into all truth by the Spirit, while each group holds beliefs incompatible with beliefs held by the other groups, this shows that in claiming to have been led to their ‘truth’ by the Holy Spirit they are merely co-opting the Holy Spirit to support their own interpretation and the historical process by which their own set of beliefs and interpretations arose. For Galli to have a basis for confidence in the Spirit’s guidance of the group of persons who agree with his own interpretation of Scripture, he cannot be in the same epistemic situation as those heretical groups, groups which he himself would claim to be heretical. And yet that is exactly the epistemic situation he is in, defining “the Church” by way of agreement with his own interpretation of Scripture.

Church history shows that heretical groups naturally treat the divine providence by which they were divinely permitted to fall into heresy as though it were instead the Holy Spirit supernaturally and uniquely leading their particular group into the truth that none of the other sects holds. Any heretical group could claim like Galli that “the full sweep of church history suggests that the Holy Spirit has, in fact, led us into all truth.” Any group of persons can be an “us” and claim to be “the Church.” But without a magisterium instituted by Christ, every claim to be “the Church” reduces to a claim about a group of persons who shares one’s own theological opinion. Without a divinely established magisterium, the confidence one can have that one’s own theological opinion is what the Holy Spirit has led “the Church” to determine cannot be qualitatively greater than that of every heretical group throughout Church history who thought the same about themselves and their theological opinion.

Without a magisterium, therefore, there is no basis for confidence that the set of persons picked out by their agreement with one’s own theological opinion is the Church being led into all truth by the Holy Spirit, and that one’s own theological opinion is that to which the Holy Spirit has been guiding the Church for the past two thousand years. Without a magisterium, confidence in the Spirit guiding “the Church” is actually confidence in one’s own interpretation of Scripture, by which what counts as “the Church” is determined. So for any claim about “the Church coming to determine what the Holy Spirit is saying,” what has always made it possible for such claims to be objective and not a mere retrospective co-opting of the Spirit to give divine sanction to one’s own interpretation, has been the existence of a divinely established magisterium by which that determination was authoritatively made definitive in the visible Church.

Depending on the Magisterium while Denying its Existence

Thus in appealing to what the Church came to determine by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Galli is implicitly depending on the Catholic magisterium of the first millennium. In that sense Galli is implicitly borrowing from the Catholic Church in order to ground the determinations he claims were made by the leading of the Holy Spirit through the early centuries of the Church.⁴ For Galli, however, “there was no magisterium in the early church, but only Christians who lived and argued together at the prodding of the Holy Spirit.”

But as I have just shown, his claim that the Holy Spirit guided “the Church” to make determinations requires that there was a magisterium, because otherwise “Church” would be reduced to “those persons throughout time who generally agree with my own interpretation of Scripture.” In that case Galli’s claim that the Holy Spirit teaches and prods the Church would be a co-opting of the Holy Spirit in support of the process by which those who generally agree with Galli came to the set of beliefs and interpretations he himself affirms. By denying that there was a magisterium in the first millennium, Galli undermines his claim that anything has been determined or settled. Everything remains up in the air, an open question yet to be settled. And thereby he undermines the very story he tells about the Spirit guiding the Church into all truth. There can be no objective development of doctrine without a magisterium, because without a magisterium not only can nothing be definitively determined, but even the identity of the Church cannot be objectively determined; there can only be those who share one’s own interpretation, and all the other groups who do not.

Every heretical group in Church history could claim that it does not need a magisterium because it has has the Spirit, and this fact undermines the objectivity of Galli’s claim, as I have shown above. But no less problematic for Galli’s position is that to hold that things have been determined in any definitive sense over the course of Church history, there has to have been a magisterium. Otherwise, what has happened is not in any sense a ‘determination,’ but merely a choice by Galli to place himself in one among hundreds of different theological traditions that emerged through various schisms and doctrinal disputes, each claiming to have been guided by the Holy Spirit to the ‘truth’ of their own unique position. In order to appeal to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the Church, and this not ultimately reduce to a burning in one’s own personal bosom, “the Church” must be picked out by something other than its agreement with one’s own interpretation of Scripture; it must be a visible body with a unified magisterium established by Christ. And if that is the case, then the proper response is to find that teaching and governing authority Christ established in His Church, and follow Christ by following it.

What would a Rejection of a Divinely Established Magisterium Look Like?

Galli claims that he does not need a magisterium, because he already has the Spirit:

We don’t need a magisterium. We already have a Lord, who told us that not even the gates of Hades (whose landlord loves to sows confusion in the church!) will prevail against the church.

The notion that “we don’t need a magisterium; we have the Spirit” is not a new one. The Montantists held something quite similar toward the end of the second century. Presbyterian minister Rick Philips replied similarly to Michael Liccione a few years ago.⁵ But there is a principled epistemic difference between submitting in the “obedience of faith” to the Church that Christ Himself founded when He was on the earth, not because it conforms to one’s own interpretation of Scripture but because Christ founded it, and forming or joining a novel community of persons because their doctrines generally match one’s own interpretation of Scripture. When we work our way through Church history and we examine the plethora of heretical sects that arose and decayed over the past two thousand years, we find that these heretical sects all have something in common; they were each formed on the basis of a particular novel interpretation of Scripture, and other persons not infrequently joined them on the basis of their agreement with that interpretation, rather than submitting to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church Christ founded. Following the Church that is already there and has always been there in continuity from the Apostles, is an act of faith in Christ who founded it. But forming a new sect on the assumption that the Church that has always been there in continuity from the Apostles is wrong, has always been an act of pride and rebellion against ecclesial authority.

As Christians we know both that Satan wants to make us think more highly of ourselves than we ought, and that he wants to destroy Christ’s Church. Pride is the chief of the seven deadly sins, and this was the sin by which Satan fell. So we know that one of his chief goals in attacking Christ’s Church is to entice Christians to rebel against Christ, by rebelling against the teaching and governing authority Christ established in His Church. We also know that he is an angel of light, and that he tempts men by making evil seem good. So how can he persuade men to rebel against Christ, while making them think that they are serving Christ? What would it look like, if Satan were successfully to persuade Christians to rebel against Christ’s Church? He would do this through pride portrayed as zeal for Christ and His gospel, convincing men to think that they can interpret Scripture better than can the magisterium Christ established in His Church. It would in effect reduce to an ecclesial version of Pink Floyd’s ‘we don’t need no education.’

That is not the virtue of faith, but the vice of pride coated in the veneer of love for Christ and His gospel. Such persons take interpretive authority to themselves, rather than submitting in humility to the ecclesial authority Christ established, in succession from the Apostles. This is the way Satan causes schisms and heresies, through a pride in which a person takes to himself an ecclesial and interpretive authority not given to him by the magisterium Christ established. Faith is not expressed through ‘submitting’ to “the Church” as picked out by its agreement with one’s own interpretation of Scripture.⁶ That is neither submission nor faith. That is distrusting Christ, by distrusting the Church He founded, and distrusting His governance of His Church through the persons He chooses and authorizes to teach and govern His Church.

Faith, by contrast, “believes and professes all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God.” Because faith does not presume eccleisal deism, faith submits to the Church that has always been there, even before the sixteenth century and all the way back to the Apostles, in the humility that is the very opposite of the pride that takes to oneself an ecclesial and interpretive authority that has not been given to oneself by those already having that authority. This is what St. Thomas Aquinas explained about the relation between faith and the Church, namely, that faith in Christ is faith through the Church Christ founded.⁷ It should be of no small concern that one’s position is indistinguishable in principle from a case of rebellion against divinely established authority. In order to justify separation from the already existing magisterium, one must have a principled basis for distinguishing rightful dissent from rebellion. And “following my own interpretation of Scripture” is no such principled basis, because it is common to all the heretical and schismatic sects and their founders.

We need a magisterium in order to have an ecclesial faith, rather than a me-and-my-Bible [along with whoever happens to agree with my interpretation] faith, and because otherwise Christ would not have established a magisterium in His Church, and enjoined us to “submit” to them and “obey” them as persons who keep watch over our souls (Heb 13:17). Christ chose and authorized Apostles not to force the early Church to choose between following the Apostles and following the Holy Spirit, but so that they could follow the Spirit by following the Apostles. Similarly, Christ’s promise concerning His Spirit leading men into all truth is not a promise that the Spirit will guide private interpretation or private bosom-burning into all truth. It provides no ground for certainty “that I am being guided into all truth” for those persons separated from the magisterium and following their own interpretation of Scripture along with others who share that interpretation. Christ’s promise that the Spirit will guide “you” into all truth has been understood in the visible Church as a promise that the Spirit will lead the Church through the magisterium He established. That is precisely how we can have confidence to know that we are being led by the Holy Spirit, and not co-opting the Spirit to sanction our own private interpretation or subjective bosom-burning.

1. See “Pentecost, Babel, and the Ecumenical Imperative.”
2. See “Sola Scriptura, a Dialogue Between Michael Horton and Bryan Cross, section IX, Apostolic Succession.
3. See “Ecclesial Deism.”
4. Of course this borrowing is arbitrary, since Galli is taking some things determined by the Catholic Church, and rejecting others. But nevertheless, by taking magisterial decisions as determinations produced by the Spirit, Galli is implicitly relying on the Catholic magisterium.
5. My reply to Philips is titled “Play church.
6. See “Solo Scriptura, Sola Scriptura, and the Question of Interpretive Authority.”
7. See “St. Thomas Aquinas on the Relation of Faith to the Church.”

The Preaching of Paul at Ephesus
Eustache Le Sueur (1649)

Lecture: God’s Universal Salvific Will (November 9, 2011)

Lawrence Feingold

God’s universal salvific will, and predestination, must always be considered together. (1′)
“God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4)
God desires all to be saved, because He loves all men, and wants us all to enter into His own life.¹ (1′)

God truly wills the salvation of all men: Scripture

1 Tim 2:1-4 (2′)
Christ gave Himself “as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:6) (3′)
John 3:16 (5′)
How do we reconcile the universal salvific will of God with the fact that some are lost? (6′)
2 Peter 3:9 “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (7′)
1 John 2:2 “expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (8′)
Sermon on the Mount (8′)
Parable of the Sower (9′)
Parable of the Wedding Feast (Mt. 22:1-14) (11′)
Parable of the Sheep: “So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” (Mt. 18:14) (15′)

Universal Means of Salvation

To say that God wills all men to be saved would be empty if it did not include some kind of universal means so that all can be saved. (16′)

Christ through His Church and sacraments is the universal means (17′)

Four steps (18′)
(1) Christ’s incarnation and passion for all men²
(2) Grace merited by Christ
(3) Universal Church
(4) Sacraments in His Church, by which men can receive His grace.

All men who attain the age of reason are given operative grace, sufficient for salvation if men cooperate (20′)
Cooperative grace is given only to those who cooperate with operative grace. (21′)

The Old Covenant not yet Catholic, and not yet a universal means of salvation, but hints at it (23′)

The Book of Jonah (25′)

The Fathers and Doctors on the Universal Salvific Will³ (26′)
All are agreed that God wills all men to be saved in a manner fitting for free creatures.

St. John Chrysostom (28′)
St. Ambrose (28′)
St. Augustine (29′)
St. John Damascene (31′)

Two senses of God’s salvific will: antecedent and consequent

Also one must bear in mind that God antecedently wishes all to be saved and come to His Kingdom. (1 Timothy 2:4) For it was not for punishment that He formed us but to share in His goodness, inasmuch as He is a good God. But inasmuch as He is a just God, His will is that sinners should suffer punishment. The first then is called God’s antecedent will and pleasure, and springs from Himself, while the second is called God’s consequent will and permission, and has its origin in us. (De Fide Orth 2.29) (34′)

St. Thomas Aquinas (36′)

Objection: It seems that the will of God is not always fulfilled. For the Apostle says (1 Timothy 2:4): “God will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” But this does not happen. Therefore the will of God is not always fulfilled.

Response: According to Damascene (De Fide Orth. 2.29), they are understood of the antecedent will of God; not of the consequent will. This distinction must not be taken as applying to the divine will itself, in which there is nothing antecedent nor consequent, but to the things willed. To understand this we must consider that everything, in so far as it is good, is willed by God. A thing taken in its primary sense, and absolutely considered, may be good or evil, and yet when some additional circumstances are taken into account, by a consequent consideration may be changed into the contrary. Thus that a man should live is good; and that a man should be killed is evil, absolutely considered. But if in a particular case we add that a man is a murderer or dangerous to society, to kill him is a good; that he live is an evil. Hence it may be said of a just judge, that antecedently he wills all men to live; but consequently wills the murderer to be hanged. In the same way God antecedently wills all men to be saved, but consequently wills some to be damned, as His justice exacts. Nor do we will simply, what we will antecedently, but rather we will it in a qualified manner; for the will is directed to things as they are in themselves, and in themselves they exist under particular qualifications. Hence we will a thing simply inasmuch as we will it when all particular circumstances are considered; and this is what is meant by willing consequently. Thus it may be said that a just judge wills simply the hanging of a murderer, but in a qualified manner he would will him to live, to wit, inasmuch as he is a man. Such a qualified will may be called a willingness rather than an absolute will. Thus it is clear that whatever God simply wills takes place; although what He wills antecedently may not take place. (Summa Theologica I Q.19, a.6.)

God wills all men to be saved, and prepares for them a series of graces sufficient (and in fact, superabundant) to bring them to salvation. But we have to correspond to them. God leaves us free will, by which we either cooperate with His grace, or freely impede it, and His consequent will takes into account our cooperation and resistance. (37′)

Denial of the Universal Salvific Will at the Reformation (38′)

Luther and Calvin denied our ability to cooperate with grace.⁴ (39′)
That denial eliminates the distinction between antecedent and consequent will (40′)⁵
This entails that God’s salvific will is not universal (41′)

Luther’s On the Bondage of the Will: (41′)

In a word: if we are under the god of this world, strangers to the work of God’s Spirit, we are led captive by him at his will, as Paul said to Timothy (2 Tim. 2.26), so that we cannot will anything but what he wills. For he is a ‘strong man armed,’ who keeps his palace to such good effect that those he holds are at peace, and raise no stir or feeling against him — otherwise, Satan’s kingdom would be divided against itself, and could not stand; but Christ says it does stand. And we acquiesce in his rule willingly and readily, according to the nature of willingness, which, if constrained, is not ‘willingness’; for constraint means rather, as one would say, ‘unwillingness’. But if a stronger appears, and overcomes Satan, we are once more servants and captives, but now desiring and willingly doing what He wills — which is royal freedom (cf. Luke 11.18-22). So man’s will is like a beast standing between two riders. If God rides, it wills and goes where God wills: as the Psalm says, ‘I am become as a beast before thee, and I am ever with thee’ (Ps. 73.22-3). If Satan rides, it wills and goes where Satan wills. Nor may it choose to which rider it will run, or which it will seek; but the riders themselves fight to decide who shall have and hold it.’ (On the Bondage of the Will, 103-104)

Luther applies this to Cain (43′)

This leads to the notion of double-predestination (45′)

John Calvin (46′)

Claimed that Christ did not die for all, but only for the elect. “Limited atonement”
Leads to the notion that some are predesined by God to hell.

Denial of the Universal Salvific Will by Jansenism (47′)

The following five Jansenist positions were infallibly condemned by Pope Innocent X in 1653: (48′)

1. Some of God’s precepts are impossible to the just, who wish and strive to keep them, according to the present powers which they have; the grace, by which they are made possible, is also wanting.

2. In the state of fallen nature one never resists interior grace.

3. In order to merit or demerit in the state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity is not required in man, but freedom from external compulsion is sufficient.

4. The Semipelagians admitted the necessity of a prevenient interior grace for each act, even for the beginning of faith; and in this they were heretics, because they wished this grace to be such that the human will could either resist or obey.

5. It is Semipelagian to say that Christ died or shed His blood for all men without exception. (Denzinger 1092-1096)

Real Possibility of Salvation for All (53′)
Sufficient grace to be saved is given to everyone who reaches the age of reason. Christ died for all men. God wills all men to cooperate with that grace, and thus God predestines no one to hell.

What about those who never hear the gospel? (53′)
What about “outside the Church there is no salvation”?

Lumen Gentium: (55′)

Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved. (Lumen Gentium, 14)

Vincible ignorance and invincible ignorance (57′)
Bl. Pope Pius IX on invincible ignorance (59′)

Lumen Gentium: (60′)

Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. (Lumen Gentium, 16)

Creed of the People of God (Pope Paul VI) (61′)

We believe that the Church is necessary for salvation, because Christ, who is the sole mediator and way of salvation, renders Himself present for us in His body which is the Church. But the divine design of salvation embraces all men, and those who without fault on their part do not know the Gospel of Christ, but seek sincerely, and under the influence of grace endeavor to do His will as recognized through the promptings of their conscience, they, in a number known only to God, can obtain salvation. (Creed of the People of God)

Catechism of the Catholic Church (62′)

“Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery.” Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity. (CCC 1260)

Explicit desire and implicit desire (65′)

Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston, August 8th, 1949 regarding Feeneyism. (67′)

However, this desire need not always be explicit, as it is in catechumens; but when a person is involved in invincible ignorance God accepts also an implicit desire, so called because it is included in that good disposition of soul whereby a person wishes his will to be conformed to the will of God. (Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston)

Salvation outside the visible Church requires perfect contrition (69′)
God gives the grace to everyone to make an act of perfect contrition (69′)

Some faith is necessary for salvation (70′)
Hence missionary activity of the Church is not rendered useless by the fact that it is possible for those to be saved who have never heard the gospel.

It is much more difficult to be saved when not in full communion with the Catholic Church, and therefore without the fullness of the truth and the means of grace Christ has established in His Church.

Mystici Corporis Christi (71′)

They who do not belong to the visible Body of the Catholic Church, … We ask each and every one of them to correspond to the interior movements of grace, and to seek to withdraw from that state in which they cannot be sure of their salvation. For even though by an unconscious desire and longing they have a certain relationship with the Mystical Body of the Redeemer, they still remain deprived of those many heavenly gifts and helps which can only be enjoyed in the Catholic Church. (Mystici Corporis Christi, 103)

Questions and Answers

1. How does the Catholic understanding of the universal salvific will compare to that of the Orthodox Jewish or Islamic view? (1′)

2. Is inculpable ignorance holding views contrary to the Church because you run out of time before you can investigate the reasons for the truth on all the issues, or is it necessary to hold the principles of the Church by faith before you dismiss them by investigation that confirms your conscience? (3′ 19″)

3. Luther said that in Genesis God was simply telling Cain what he ought to do. But if as Luther believed, Cain had no choice in the matter, why would God bother telling him at all? (4’42″)

4. In many places in Scripture we see God hardening people’s hearts. In Deuteronomy 2:30 He hardens the heart of Sihon King of Heshbon. In Joshua 11:20 He hardens the hearts of the Canaanites. In 1 Sam. 2:25 He hardens the hearts of Hophni and Phineas, so that they would not listen to Eli. Jesus thanks the Father for hiding things from the wise and prudent (Matt. 11:25,26), and quotes Isaiah saying that God has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted. (John 12:37-40) St. Paul says the same in Romans 11:8, and in 2 Thess 2:11 he says that God sends them a strong delusion to make them believe what is false. How is all this compatible with a universal salvific will? (6’30″)

5. In John 10:26 Jesus says, “but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.” If God wants all men to be saved, why doesn’t Jesus say, “you are not of my sheep because you do not believe”? (17′)

6. If God wants all men to be saved, then why does St. Paul say (Rom. 9:22) that there are “vessels of wrath made for destruction” and why does St. Peter say “for they stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do”? (1 Pet. 2:8) (19′)

7. If our being saved or being lost depends fundamentally on whether we cooperate or do not cooperate with grace, then why does St. Paul say that “it is not of him that wills or runs, but of God that shows mercy” (Rom 9:16) Why does St. Paul in Romans 9 seem to make election depend not on human choice but on God’s sovereign and inscrutable will? (24′)

8. Does the possession of sanctifying grace require conscious explicit faith in Jesus as the Son of God? If not, how is the Council’s teaching different from Rahner’s “anonymous Christian”? If it requires faith, then how can the Catechism speak of atheists possibly attaining salvation? [Note: the Catechism does not speak of atheists as such possibly attaining salvation. The questioner was referring to Lumen Gentium 16] (26′)

1. The doctrine of God’s universal salvific will is not to be confused with universalism, the claim that all men are saved, or with what is called ‘hopeful universalism,’ which I have addressed here.
2. The Church, following the apostles, teaches that Christ died for all men without exception: “There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer.” [Council of Quiercy (853)]. (CCC 605)
3. For more excerpts from the Church Fathers on this subject see section 54 of Fr. Mosts’s book Grace, Predestination, and the Universal Salvific Will of God.
4. This denial was in turn based on their notion of original sin, explained here, and their not distinguishing between actual grace and sanctifying grace, explained here.
5. The distinction between antecedent and consequent will should not be confused with the Reformed distinction between preceptive will and decretive will. The former distinction allows for it to be true without contradiction that God desires all men to be saved and yet not all men are saved; but without the former distinction the latter distinction undermines the possibility of an authentic universal salvific will in God. If God commands that a person repent, but then, not on the basis of foreseen rejection of grace by that person, refuses to give sufficient grace for that person to repent, not only does God not truly desire that person’s salvation, but God has fallen into a performative contradiction, saying one thing, but doing something contrary to what He says. Either He does not mean what He says, in which case He is not the Truth, or He rebels against Himself, in which case He is in need of salvation. The notion that there are two actual contrary wills in God (in which neither will involves an abstraction from what God knows about human choices) is not only a theological schizophrenia, it is also a form of Manichean dualism. Calvinists use Scriptural examples of the difference between what is in fact divine antecedent will and divine consequent will, as though this supports a decretive-preceptive distinction not based on an antecedent-consequent distinction. John Piper does that, for example, in his “Are There Two Wills in God?,” and so do Luther, Calvin, Turretin, etc. — see here. But while an antecedent-consequent distinction avoids theological schizophrenia, because the former is an abstraction, the decretive-preceptive distinction without the antecedent-consequent distinction does not avoid theological schizophrenia, because neither the decretive nor preceptive will is an abstraction.

Martyrdom of St. Paul
Giotto di Bondone (c. 1330)

Here I will first present Prof. Feingold’s lecture, and Q&A following the lecture. Then I will examine John Calvin’s position on the subject of merit. Then I will give a brief survey of the Church Fathers’ teaching on merit, the teaching of Scripture on the subject of merit, and a summary of the Catholic teaching on the subject of merit.

Outline:

I. Lawrence Feingold Lecture on Merit
II. Questions and Answers Following the Lecture
III. John Calvin on Merit
IV. Church Fathers on Merit
V. Scripture on Merit
VI. Catholic Teaching on Merit
VII. Conclusion

Lawrence Feingold

I. Lawrence Feingold Lecture on Merit (November 2, 2011)

The subject of merit is a point of dispute between Protestants and Catholics. Protestants tend to think that the Catholic view of merit is Pelagian. (1′)

What do we mean by ‘merit’? (1′)

Here we are speaking of good works done in a state of grace, in the context of a covenant. (2′)

Biblical Texts on Merit (2′)
Old Testament

Ezekiel 18
Conversion cannot be merited (7′)
Meritorious work is what is done out of agape by one having sanctifying grace; it merits more grace. (8′)
St. Paul on works of the law (9′)

New Testament (10′)

Matthew 25
Rev. 20:13 (25′)

This present life as a trial (26′)

Wisdom 3:1-6 (26′)
Rev. 21:7 (27′)
2 Tim. 4:8 (27′)
Gen. 22:16 (31′)

Theological Reflection on these Texts (32′)

Two kinds of good works: natural good works, and works done in agape (36)
[For the distinction between natural and supernatural, see here.]
Why natural good works (purely human works) cannot merit; the error of Pelagianism.
Protestant’s rejection of merit is an overreaction to Pelagianism.

Why faith alone is not enough, because “if I have all faith … but have not love, I am nothing.” (1 Cor 13:2) (38′)
The source of merit (39′)

St. Thomas Aquinas addresses this: (41′)

Man without grace may be looked at in two states, as was said above (Question 109, Article 2): the first, a state of perfect nature, in which Adam was before his sin; the second, a state of corrupt nature, in which we are before being restored by grace. Therefore, if we speak of man in the first state, there is only one reason why man cannot merit eternal life without grace, by his purely natural endowments, viz. because man’s merit depends on the Divine pre-ordination. Now no act of anything whatsoever is divinely ordained to anything exceeding the proportion of the powers which are the principles of its act; for it is a law of Divine providence that nothing shall act beyond its powers. Now everlasting life is a good exceeding the proportion of created nature; since it exceeds its knowledge and desire, according to 1 Corinthians 2:9: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man.” And hence it is that no created nature is a sufficient principle of an act meritorious of eternal life, unless there is added a supernatural gift, which we call grace. But if we speak of man as existing in sin, a second reason is added to this, viz. the impediment of sin. For since sin is an offense against God, excluding us from eternal life, as is clear from what has been said above (q. 71, a. 6; q. 113, a. 2), no one existing in a state of mortal sin can merit eternal life unless first he be reconciled to God, through his sin being forgiven, which is brought about by grace. (Summa Theologica I-II q.114 a.2.)

Question: Without the sacrament of confession, how do Protestants receive grace after sin? (42′)(63′)
Baptism of desire

Two kinds of merit: condign and congruous (47′)

Cornelius (50′)
Prayers for others (51′)

St. Thomas explains how man, in a state of grace, can merit eternal life:

Man’s meritorious work may be considered in two ways: first, as it proceeds from free-will; secondly, as it proceeds from the grace of the Holy Ghost. If it is considered as regards the substance of the work, and inasmuch as it springs from the free-will, there can be no condignity because of the very great inequality. But there is congruity, on account of an equality of proportion: for it would seem congruous that, if a man does what he can, God should reward him according to the excellence of his power. If, however, we speak of a meritorious work, inasmuch as it proceeds from the grace of the Holy Ghost moving us to life everlasting, it is meritorious of life everlasting condignly. For thus the value of its merit depends upon the power of the Holy Ghost moving us to life everlasting according to John 4:14: “Shall become in him a fount of water springing up into life everlasting.” And the worth of the work depends on the dignity of grace, whereby a man, being made a partaker of the Divine Nature, is adopted as a son of God, to whom the inheritance is due by right of adoption, according to Romans 8:17: “If sons, heirs also.” (Summa Theologica I-II q.114 a.3)

Sanctifying grace gives a supernatural dignity to those who have it, giving supernatural worth to the acts that flow from grace and charity. (53′)
God crowns His own gifts (54′)

Council of Trent (54′)

Therefore, to men justified in this manner, whether they have preserved uninterruptedly the grace received or recovered it when lost, are to be pointed out the words of the Apostle: Abound in every good work, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. For God is not unjust, that he should forget your work, and the love which you have shown in his name; and, Do not lose your confidence, which hath a great reward. Hence, to those who work well unto the end and trust in God, eternal life is to be offered, both as a grace mercifully promised to the sons of God through Christ Jesus, and as a reward promised by God himself, to be faithfully given to their good works and merits.

For this is the crown of justice which after his fight and course the Apostle declared was laid up for him, to be rendered to him by the just judge, and not only to him, but also to all that love his coming. For since Christ Jesus Himself, as the head into the members and the vine into the branches, continually infuses strength into those justified, which strength always precedes, accompanies and follows their good works, and without which they could not in any manner be pleasing and meritorious before God, we must believe that nothing further is wanting to those justified to prevent them from being considered to have, by those very works which have been done in God, fully satisfied the divine law according to the state of this life and to have truly merited eternal life, to be obtained in its [due] time, provided they depart [this life] in grace, since Christ our Savior says: If anyone shall drink of the water that I will give him, he shall not thirst forever; but it shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into life everlasting.

Thus, neither is our own justice established as our own from ourselves, nor is the justice of God ignored or repudiated, for that justice which is called ours, because we are justified by its inherence in us, that same is [the justice] of God, because it is infused into us by God through the merit of Christ. Nor must this be omitted, that although in the sacred writings so much is attributed to good works, that even he that shall give a drink of cold water to one of his least ones, Christ promises, shall not lose his reward; and the Apostle testifies that, That which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory; nevertheless, far be it that a Christian should either trust or glory in himself and not in the Lord, whose bounty toward all men is so great that He wishes the things that are His gifts to be their merits.

And since in many things we all offend, each one ought to have before his eyes not only the mercy and goodness but also the severity and judgment [of God]; neither ought anyone to judge himself, even though he be not conscious to himself of anything; because the whole life of man is to be examined and judged not by the judgment of man but of God, who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts, and then shall every man have praise from God, who, as it is written, will render to every man according to his works. (Council of Trent, Session 6, Chapter 16)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains: (55′)

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. (CCC 2008)

Operative grace [see here] is the principle of all merit, but is not in itself meritorious (56′)

Charity is the Principle of Merit (57′)

St. Thomas writes:

For we must bear in mind that everlasting life consists in the enjoyment of God. Now the human mind’s movement to the fruition of the Divine good is the proper act of charity, whereby all the acts of the other virtues are ordained to this end, since all the other virtues are commanded by charity. Hence the merit of life everlasting pertains first to charity, and secondly, to the other virtues, inasmuch as their acts are commanded by charity. (Summa Theologica I-II q. 114 a.4.)

Growth and Loss of Merit (60′)

Does every good act done in a state of grace, motivated by charity, merit? (64′)
Does it merit an increase in sanctifying grace, an increase in the theological virtues, and eternal life?
Are all meritorious acts equal? (67′)
Can we merit for others? (72′)

The Protestant Rejection of the Possibility of Merit (72′)

Council of Trent (78′)

Canon 32. If anyone says that the good works of the one justified are in such manner the gifts of God that they are not also the good merits of him justified; or that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, does not truly merit an increase of grace, eternal life, and in case he dies in grace, the attainment of eternal life itself and also an increase of glory, let him be anathema. (Council of Trent, Session 6, Canon 32)

II. Questions and Answers

(1) Did Christ have infinite grace; how is it that Christ could merit for us and for all men? What kind of grace did He have in His soul? (1′)

(2) How does one know that one is in a state of grace? (2′)

(3) Why did the Jews confuse the works of the law with the double commandment of love? Is it like today bad catechesis? (10′)

(4) I can’t seem to remember, but did St. Thérèse say there was merit in picking up a pen off the floor if done out of love for God? (14′)

(5) Why has God made salvation a game of musical chairs? A person who is in a state of grace most of his life can be damned for the unlucky timing of his last sin. (15′)

(6) An important versed used by Protestants regarding merit is “For it is by grace you are saved through faith … not by works, so that no one may boast.” (Eph 2:8-9) How do Catholics understand this verse, and why can’t Catholics boast? (18′)

(7) Why exactly is merit not communicable, and why is Christ’s merit able to be communicated to all men? (29′)

(8) Why is it right to say that those in sanctifying grace merit eternal life if being in a state of grace they already have eternal life? In other words, what is the significance of the distinction between meriting eternal life, and meriting the attainment of eternal life? (32′)

(9) What exactly does it mean to make an “intense act”? Does it mean to work up one’s passions? (35′)

III. John Calvin on Merit

In light of Prof. Feingold’s lecture on the subject of merit, it would be helpful to consider whether John Calvin’s position was in keeping with the teaching of the Church Fathers, because most Protestants have followed Calvin on this question. On the subject of merit Calvin wrote:

First, I say, that the best thing which can be produced by them [i.e. believers] is always tainted and corrupted by the impurity of the flesh, and has, as it were, some mixture of dross in it. Let the holy servant of God, I say, select from the whole course of his life the action which he deems most excellent, and let him ponder it in all its parts; he will doubtless find in it something that savors of the rottenness of the flesh, since our alacrity in well-doing is never what it ought to be, but our course is always retarded by much weakness. Although we see that the stains that bespatter the works of the saints are plainly visible, though we admit that they are only the slightest spots, will they not offend God’s eyes, before which even the stars are not clean? We thus see, that even saints cannot perform one work which, if judged on its own merits, is not deserving of condemnation. (Institutes III.14.9)

From Calvin’s point of view, every act by a believer is impure, because it is never done out of entirely pure motives, or with the highest degree of alacrity possible. Even if these deficiencies are “the slightest spots,” they are enough, claims Calvin, to make every ‘good’ work of every believer worthy of damnation, and therefore in no way meritorious for any heavenly reward. In that same chapter he writes:

We must strongly insist on these two things: That no believer ever performed one work which, if tested by the strict judgment of God, could escape condemnation; and, moreover, that were this granted to be possible (though it is not), yet the act being vitiated and polluted by the sins of which it is certain that the author of it is guilty, it is deprived of its merit. (Institutes III.14.11)

So Calvin entirely denies merit. He affirms that God gives different ‘rewards’ to different individuals. But these ‘rewards’ are not merits, not only because for Calvin whatever the believer does is polluted with mixed motives, and thus damnable, but also because whatever good is in the act is only worked by God, not by the believer. And therefore, the ‘rewards’ God gives for the good works of the believer are in no way merited by the believer. Hence Calvin writes:

Accordingly, in the passage already quoted from the Apostle Paul, he attributes the whole operation to God, “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure,” (Phil. 2:13). The first part of a good work is the will, the second is vigorous effort in the doing of it. God is the author of both. It is, therefore, robbery from God to arrogate anything to ourselves, either in the will or the act. Were it said that God gives assistance to a weak will, something might be left us; but when it is said that he makes the will, every thing good in it is placed without us. Moreover, since even a good will is still weighed down by the burden of the flesh, and prevented from rising, it is added, that, to meet the difficulties of the contest, God supplies the persevering effort until the effect is obtained. (Institutes II.3.9.)

Regarding that same verse (Phil. 2:13) he writes also:

For, after saying, “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do,” he [i.e. St. Paul] immediately adds, “of his good pleasure,” (Phil. 2:13); indicating by this expression, that the blessing is gratuitous. As to the common saying, that after we have given admission to the first grace, our efforts co-operate with subsequent grace, this is my answer: — If it is meant that after we are once subdued by the power of the Lord to the obedience of righteousness, we proceed voluntarily, and are inclined to follow the movement of grace, I have nothing to object. For it is most certain, that where the grace of God reigns, there is also this readiness to obey. And whence this readiness, but just that the Spirit of God being everywhere consistent with himself, after first begetting a principle of obedience, cherishes and strengthens it for perseverance? If, again, it is meant that man is able of himself to be a fellow-labourer with the grace of God, I hold it to be a most pestilential delusion. (Institutes II.3.11.)

Calvin treats whatever is good in the believer’s good work as done only by God. He attributes the “whole operation” to God. Because the believer contributes nothing at all, or only something impure and therefore damnable, the believer merits no heavenly reward when he does any good works. This creates a very strange kind of notion, as though when God is at work in the believer, the believer becomes something like a zombie, entirely passive, not freely willing the good, but having his will moved entirely by someone else, such that he is entirely not responsible for what he does, and therefore he in no way merits any reward. For Calvin, to claim that man in grace merits a heavenly reward would be to rob God of the credit. Calvin’s only way of conceiving divine-human synergism is in terms of parts; any part contributed by one takes away the part contributed by the other. Therefore the notion that man is a “fellow-labourer with the grace of God” is, for Calvin, a “most pestilential delusion.” In his view, when God ‘rewards’ us, He treats what was entirely His doing as though it was our doing:

And yet those good works which the Lord has bestowed upon us he counts [as] ours also, and declares, that they are not only acceptable to him, but that he will recompense them. … There cannot be a doubt, that every thing in our works which deserves praise is owing to divine grace, and that there is not a particle of it which we can properly ascribe to ourselves. If we truly and seriously acknowledge this, not only confidence, but every idea of merit vanishes. I say we do not, like the Sophists share the praise of works between God and man, but we keep it entire and unimpaired for the Lord. All we assign to man is that, by his impurity he pollutes and contaminates the very works which were good. The most perfect thing which proceeds from man is always polluted by some stain. Should the Lord, therefore, bring to judgment the best of human works, he would indeed behold his own righteousness in them; but he would also behold man’s dishonor and disgrace. Thus good works please God, and are not without fruit to their authors, since, by way of recompense, they obtain more ample blessings from God, not because they so deserve, but because the divine benignity is pleased of itself to set this value upon them. (Institutes III.15.3)

Calvin seems to shift between two different opinions: either (a) God working through the believer makes the believer’s good works not only entirely God’s and truly good, but God then counts them as the believer’s even though the believer contributed nothing to them, or (b) despite the believer’s good works each being utterly damnable, God is pleased to set value on them on account of His utterly gratuitous favor. Either way, the implication of Calvin’s position is that there are neither merits nor rewards for believers; there are only gifts that are designed to seem like rewards, but are not rewards for the believer’s good works. First God gives the gift of doing many good works through the believer (the believer himself contributing nothing, or nothing good, in the doing of these good works); then God ‘rewards’ the believer for those goods works, as though they were rewards for the good works that the believer did, even though the believer himself did not do them, instead God did these good works through him.

Calvin takes St. Augustine’s “what else but His gifts does God crown when He crowns our merits?” and uses it to justify the claim that God alone is the agent in our good works. But that was not St. Augustine’s position. As I will show below, for St. Augustine and the Church Fathers, the believer’s capacity to merit is itself a gracious gift from God through infused grace elevating the believer to the supernatural order, and God moves the believer by actual grace. But nevertheless the good work done in grace is still also truly the work of the believer, who freely wills the good work and who thereby merits the supernatural reward to which that work is ordered. But it is not as though God does some percentage of the work, and the believer does the remaining percentage; rather, God works through the believer while the believer retains his full natural functional and causal integrity, though now elevated by grace to participate in the divine movement ordered toward the beatific vision. In this way it is simultaneously true that in crowing the believer’s good works God crowns His own gifts, and that in crowning the believer’s good works God justly crowns the believer’s good works with a reward his free choices truly merited.

Regarding Luke 17:7-10, Calvin writes:

With respect to merit, we must remove the difficulty by which many are perplexed; for Scripture so frequently promises a reward to our works, that they think it allows them some merit. The reply is easy. A reward is promised, not as a debt, but from the mere good pleasure of God. It is a great mistake to suppose that there is a mutual relation between Reward and Merit; for it is by his own undeserved favor, and not by the value of our works, that God is induced to reward them. By the engagements of the Law , I readily acknowledge, God is bound to men, if they were to discharge fully all that is required from them; but still, as this is a voluntary obligation, it remains a fixed principle, that man can demand nothing from God, as if he had merited any thing. And thus the arrogance of the flesh falls to the ground; for, granting that any man fulfilled the Law, he cannot plead that he has any claims on God, having done no more than he was bound to do. When he says that we are unprofitable servants, his meaning is, that God receives from us nothing beyond what is justly due but only collects the lawful revenues of his dominion.

There are two principles, therefore, that must be maintained: first, that God naturally owes us nothing, and that all the services which we render to him are not worth a single straw; secondly, that, according to the engagements of the Law, a reward is attached to works, not on account of their value, but because God is graciously pleased to become our debtor. It would evince intolerable ingratitude, if on such a ground any person should indulge in proud vaunting. The kindness and liberality which God exercises towards us are so far from giving us a right to swell with foolish confidence, that we are only laid under deeper obligations to Him. Whenever we meet with the word reward, or whenever it occurs to our recollection, let us look upon this as the crowning act of the goodness of God to us, that, though we are completely in his debt, he condescends to enter into a bargain with us. So much the more detestable is the invention of the Sophists, who have had the effrontery to forge a kind of merit, which professes to be founded on a just claim. The word merit, taken by itself, was sufficiently profane and inconsistent with the standard of piety; but to intoxicate men with diabolical pride, as if they could merit any thing by a just claim, is far worse.

We have done what we were bound to do. That is, “we have brought nothing of our own, but have only done what we were bound by the law to do ” Christ speaks here of an entire observance of the law, which is nowhere to be found; for the most perfect of all men is still at a great distance from that righteousness which the law demands. The present question is not, Are we justified by works? but, Is the observance of the law meritorious of any reward from God? This latter question is answered in the negative; for God holds us for his slaves, and therefore reckons all that can proceed from us to be his just right. Nay, though it were true, that a reward is due to the observance of the law in respect of merit, it will not therefore follow that any man is justified by the merits of works; for we all fail: and not only is our obedience imperfect, but there is not a single part of it that corresponds exactly to the judgment of God. (Calvin’s commentary on Luke 17:7-10)

John Calvin

Calvin claims that our good works done in grace do not deserve the reward of heaven. God is induced to ‘reward’ the good works of the saints not because those have any value, but simply because of His undeserved favor. For Calvin, all a believer’s good works are “not worth a single straw.” So according to Calvin’s theology the ‘rewards’ God gives the saints are no rewards at all, but merely gifts made to look like rewards, even while all parties know (on this theory) that these ‘rewards’ are not rewards at all, but only gifts made to look like rewards. Calvin thinks that believers in a state of grace cannot merit anything from God because he thinks that to do so would require perfect law-keeping. But Calvin seems not to have understood that love fulfills the law, and that love cannot itself be reduced to a law.¹

The possibility of loving more does not entail that one does not have love, or that one’s love is imperfect or incomplete. That is because our capacity to love can grow. By infusion, our love can truly be God’s love; the Apostle John teaches, “because as He is, so also are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17) The love that the Holy Spirit graciously pours out into our hearts (Rom 5:5) is the love by which we are sons and daughters of God, and truly merit a greater share in the love which is His eternal life. Also Calvin treats the presence of concupiscence in the lower appetites as imperfect love, but love for God is essentially in the will, and therefore can be truly present even when concupiscence is present in the lower appetites.²

Of course we cannot boast; hence the saint will see himself as only doing his duty, not merely doing his duty according to the law, but doing his duty on account of love. Hence while Calvin thinks of the believer as a mere slave of God, Jesus teaches the disciples that they are His friends. (John 15:15) See Question 6 in the Q&A following the lecture above.

Calvin’s position concerning merit turns rewards into a farce, by depicting God’s ‘rewarding’ the believer’s good works the way a small child might reward its dolls for activities the dolls did by the hands of the child. In this way he turns God into someone who by imputation not only calls believers perfectly righteousness while in fact knowing that they are unrighteous, but gives believers what He calls rewards, even while knowing that their good works either deserve no reward at all, or were done entirely by Him and not also done by the believers. Either way, God is doubly made out to be a liar.³

What is missing from the picture in Calvin’s theology of merit is an understanding of the role of sanctifying grace, and agape as an infused virtue by which our good actions (still truly ours) are supernaturally ordered toward our supernatural end, and by actual grace are a genuine participation (i.e. κοινωνίᾳ), not monergism, in God’s own work of moving us to that supernatural end. Calvin’s notion of union with God is that God monergistically does everything good that comes out of the believer. In Calvin’s account of the believer’s good works, the believer does not participate in the life and agape of God.

According to Catholic doctrine, by contrast, the believer’s good works are by participation both the action of God and the action of the believer, not 50/50, but 100/100, because grace builds on nature and does not squelch or obliterate it. When God works through and in the believer, the believer truly and freely acts as a rational agent. God does not merely make use of his body like a machine; God moves us according to our nature, that is, in a way that preserves and upholds the nature He gave us. And the nature He gave us is human nature, which includes the power of free choice. So God moves us by actual grace to a supernatural end, and by this elevation grants us a participation in Him, all while preserving our nature and our natural operation. In this way, the good works that we do in grace and agape are both from Him, and ordered to Him, but also truly done by us, out of our love for Him, a love (apape) that is supernatural and infused, but is by that infusion truly made to be ours, and not merely existing inside of us. That is the very difference between sanctifying grace and actual grace.⁴

IV. The Church Fathers on Merit

Does Calvin’s view of merit comport with that of the Church Fathers? The teaching of the Church Fathers on the subject of merit is summarized well in the teaching of the Council of Orange (AD 529):

The reward given for good works is not won by reason of actions which precede grace, but grace, which is unmerited, precedes actions in order that they may be accomplished meritoriously.

In other words, according to the Council of Orange, Semipelagianism is false, because those not having sanctifying grace cannot merit sanctifying grace. But those who have received sanctifying grace can thereby merit rewards through their good works done in a state of grace.

Here are some relevant passages from Church Fathers and early Church teachers, roughly in chronological order:

St. Ignatius of Antioch

Let yours works be deposits, so that you may receive the sum that is due to you. (Letter to Polycarp, 6)

“Due to you” does not fit with Calvin’s position.

St. Justin Martyr

We have learned from the prophets, and we hold it to be true, that punishments, and chastisements, and good rewards, are rendered according to the merit of each man’s actions. Since if it be not so, but all things happen by fate, neither is anything at all in our own power. For if it be fated that this man, e.g., be good, and this other evil, neither is the former meritorious nor the latter to be blamed. And again, unless the human race have the power of avoiding evil and choosing good by free choice, they are not accountable for their actions, of whatever kind they be. But that it is by free choice they both walk uprightly and stumble, we thus demonstrate. (First Apology, 43)

St. Justin’s claim that good rewards are rendered “according to the merit of each man’s actions” is contrary to Calvin’s position.

St. Theophilus of Antioch

But do you also, if you please, give reverential attention to the prophetic Scriptures, and they will make your way plainer for escaping the eternal punishments, and obtaining the eternal prizes of God. For He who gave the mouth for speech, and formed the ear to hear, and made the eye to see, will examine all things, and will judge [with] righteous judgment, rendering merited awards to each. To those who by patient continuance in well-doing Romans 2:7 seek immortality, He will give life everlasting, joy, peace, rest, and abundance of good things, which neither has eye seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man to conceive. (To Autolycus, I.14)

St. Theophilus’ claim that God will judge with righteous [i.e. just] judgment, rendering merited awards to each, does not fit with Calvin’s position. The Fathers commonly speak of God’s righteous (or just) judgment, in giving both rewards and punishments. But if God gave to the saints rewards for what they did not do, this would not be just. In the Catholic doctrine found throughout the Church Fathers, God’s grace does not merely give gifts, it also gives by infusion the power and dignity of being able truly to merit those heavenly gifts, such that God does not have His fingers crossed behind His back when He says, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

St. Irenaeus

We deem the crown precious, namely, that which is acquired by our struggle, but which does not encircle us of its own accord. And the harder we strive, so much is it the more valuable; while so much the more valuable it is, so much the more should we esteem it. (Against Heresies, IV.37)

“Acquired by our struggle” again does not fit with Calvin’s notion of merit.

Tertullian

A good deed has God as its debtor, just as an evil has too; for a judge is a rewarder of every cause. (On penance, 2)

The notion that a good deed has God as its debtor is incompatible with Calvin’s position. If the early Church were Calvinist, Tertullian and the Fathers would not have said these things.

St. Hippolytus

For all, the righteous and the unrighteous alike, shall be brought before God the Word. For the Father has committed all judgment to Him; and in fulfilment of the Father’s counsel, He comes as Judge whom we call Christ. For it is not Minos and Rhadamanthys that are to judge (the world), as you fancy, O Greeks, but He whom God the Father has glorified, of whom we have spoken elsewhere more in particular, for the profit of those who seek the truth. He, in administering the righteous judgment of the Father to all, assigns to each what is righteous according to his works. And being present at His judicial decision, all, both men and angels and demons, shall utter one voice, saying, Righteous is Your judgment. Of which voice the justification will be seen in the awarding to each that which is just; since to those who have done well shall be assigned righteously eternal bliss, and to the lovers of iniquity shall be given eternal punishment. And the fire which is un-quenchable and without end awaits these latter, and a certain fiery worm which dies not, and which does not waste the body, but continues bursting forth from the body with unending pain. No sleep will give them rest; no night will soothe them; no death will deliver them from punishment; no voice of interceding friends will profit them. For neither are the righteous seen by them any longer, nor are they worthy of remembrance. But the righteous will remember only the righteous deeds by which they reached the heavenly kingdom…. (Against the Greeks, 3)

In the Judgment, Christ assigns to each what is righteous (i.e. just) according to his works. Eternal bliss is “righteously” (i.e. justly) assigned to those who have done well. This reward is the just due for those good works. Again, this is incompatible with Calvin’s position.

St. Cyprian

Listen to the voice of your Lord in the Apocalypse, rebuking men of your stamp with righteous reproaches: You say, says He, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich; and white raiment, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness may not appear in you; and anoint your eyes with eye-salve, that you may see. Revelation 3:17-18 You therefore, who are rich and wealthy, buy for yourself of Christ gold tried by fire; that you may be pure gold, with your filth burnt out as if by fire, if you are purged by almsgiving and righteous works. Buy for yourself white raiment, that you who had been naked according to Adam, and were before frightful and unseemly, may be clothed with the white garment of Christ. And you who are a wealthy and rich matron in Christ’s Church, anoint your eyes, not with the collyrium of the devil, but with Christ’s eye-salve, that you may be able to attain to see God, by deserving well of God, both by good works and character.

You promise eternal life to those who labour for You; … although they are honoured by You with divine wages and heavenly rewards.

Let us give to Christ earthly garments, that we may receive heavenly raiment; let us give food and drink of this world, that we may come with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob to the heavenly banquet. That we may not reap little, let us sow abundantly.

What, dearest brethren, will be that glory of those who labour charitably— how great and high the joy when the Lord begins to number His people, and, distributing to our merits and good works the promised rewards, to give heavenly things for earthly, eternal things for temporal, great things for small; to present us to the Father, to whom He has restored us by His sanctification;… An illustrious and divine thing, dearest brethren, is the saving labour of charity; … assisted by which the Christian accomplishes spiritual grace, deserves well of Christ the Judge, accounts God his debtor. For this palm of works of salvation let us gladly and readily strive; let us all, in the struggle of righteousness, run with God and Christ looking on; and let us who have already begun to be greater than this life and the world, slacken our course by no desire of this life and of this world. If the day shall find us, whether it be the day of reward or of persecution, furnished, if swift, if running in this contest of charity, the Lord will never fail of giving a reward for our merits: in peace He will give to us who conquer, a white crown for our labours; in persecution, He will accompany it with a purple one for our passion. (On Works and Alms, 14,22,24,26)

St. Cyprian urges Christians to “buy” for themselves gold tried by fire and white raiment, in order to attain “to see God” (i.e. the beatific vision) by “deserving well of God, both by good works and character.” That is directly contrary to Calvin’s position. St. Cyprian notes that not only are those who labor for Christ promised eternal life, but they are honored by Christ with divine wages and heavenly rewards for those labors. Again, that is contrary to Calvin’s position. St. Cyprian sees almsgiving as a way of storing up treasure in heaven, meriting the “heavenly raiment.” On that Day there will be great joy when Christ distributes “to our merits and good works” the promised rewards (heavenly things), for these good works. By doing good deeds in grace and love, the Christian “deserves well of Christ the Judge and makes God his debtor.” St. Cyprian assures us that Christ “will never fail of giving a reward for our merits.” Again, this is incompatible with Calvin’s position.

St. Ambrose

All men rise again, but let no one lose heart, and let not the just grieve at the common lot of rising again, since he awaits the chief fruit of his virtue. All indeed shall rise again, 1 Corinthians 15:23 but, as says the Apostle, each in his own order. The fruit of the Divine Mercy is common to all, but the order of merit differs. (On the Death of Satyrus, II.)

According to St. Ambrose, all Christians who die in a state of grace receive eternal life and the resurrection of the body, but each according to the order corresponding to his merit. Calvin’s position is not compatible with the differences in the orders of the saints being due to merit.

St. Jerome

And at the same time regard must be had to the sense of Scripture: I might tell you, He says, that I go to prepare a place for you, if there were not many mansions in my Father’s house (John 14:2), that is to say, if each individual did not prepare for himself a mansion through his own works rather than receive it through the bounty of God. The preparation is therefore not mine, but yours. This view is supported by the fact that it profited Judas nothing to have a place prepared, since he lost it by his own fault. And we must interpret in the same way what our Lord says to the sons of Zebedee, one of whom wished to sit on His left hand, the other on His right: (Matthew 20:23) My cup indeed you shall drink: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left hand, is not mine to give, but it is for them for whom it has been prepared of my Father. It is not the Son’s to give; how then is it the Father’s to prepare? There are, He says, prepared in heaven, many different mansions, destined for many different virtues, and they will be awarded not to persons, but to persons’ works. In vain therefore do you ask of me what rests with yourselves, a reward which my Father has prepared for those whose virtues will entitle them to rise to such dignity. Again when He says: (John 14:3) I will come again, and will receive you unto myself: that where I am, there ye may be also, He is speaking especially to the apostles, concerning whom it is elsewhere written, That as I and thou, Father, are one, so they also may be one in us, inasmuch as they have believed, have been perfected, and can say, the Lord is my portion. … Now our work is, according to our different virtues, to prepare for ourselves a different future. . . . If we are all to be equal in heaven, in vain do we humble ourselves here that we may be greater there. . . Why do virgins persevere? widows toil? Why do married women practise continence? Let us all sin, and when once we have repented, we shall be on the same footing as the apostles. (Against Jovinianus, II.28,32)

In explaining the many mansions, and who gets to sit at Christ’s right hand, St. Jerome says that it is vain to request this of Christ, because it “rests with yourselves,” being “a reward which My Father has prepared for those whose virtues will entitle them to rise to such dignity.” Calvin would not have said that it rests on our good works, or that these good works would entitle believers to rise to such dignity. Likewise, St. Jerome’s argument at the end of this quotation would make no sense if he were a Calvinist. Why do virgins persevere? widows toil? married women practice continence? Why toil and suffer and beat our bodies, rather than just eat, drink and be merry? The Calvinist answer is that it does not depend on the believer at all, but only on God who moves (or doesn’t move) the believer to do (or not do) good works. But St. Jerome’s line of argument shows that for St. Jerome, it also depends on us. If we choose to struggle and suffer, and obey, we will be rewarded, and the reward will both rightly due to us, and at the same time the result of God’s gracious work in us and through us. But if we choose not to labor and struggle and suffer in this present life, our eternal reward will be diminished.

What is diminished is our participation in the Life of God. As St. Jerome wrote, “The Lord is my portion.” The Church Fathers do not teach that the heavenly rewards for Christians are created things. Believers want more of God, who is Eternal Life, and this is why they give up money, houses, wives, and so many other created things. It would be absurd therefore, for God to reward the saints with more created things. The martyrs did not endure all the sufferings and tortures they endured, just to get a bigger mansion made of gold or precious stones. To interpret it that way is to misunderstand what heaven is all about.

Christ explains the parable of the talents, saying, “he who has, more will be given to him.” (Matt 25:29) Our rewards are not creatures. Our reward is a greater participation in what we already have been given: grace (i.e. participation in the eternal Life of God). Our heavenly rewards for loving obedience are a greater share in the Life of God. No one in heaven has a longer life than another. But we should not conflate eternal life with everlasting life. There are different ‘mansions’ in the Father’s house, because there will be different degrees of participation in the Life of God, depending (in part) on what we do in this present life with the grace we have been given. The notion that there is not any more eternal life to be merited either reduces eternal life to everlasting existence, or it treats our rewards as created things, i.e. mere creatures, rather than a greater share in God Himself. That is the Muslim and Mormon way of thinking about heavenly rewards, e.g. seventy virgins and/or a whole planet for oneself.

St. Augustine

St. Augustine writes:

Gracious and upright is the Lord (Ps 24:8). The Lord is gracious, since even sinners and the ungodly He so pitied, as to forgive all that is past; but the Lord is upright too, who after the mercy of vocation and pardon, which is of grace without merit, will require merits meet for the last judgment. (Exposition on Psalm 25.)

St. Augustine taught the position that was later affirmed by the Council of Orange, quoted above. According to St. Augustine, man cannot merit apart from grace, but for those in grace, God will require from believers merits meet [fit] for the last Judgment. For Calvin, the believer is incapable of producing merits meet for the last Judgment.

St. Augustine writes:

Now there would be no great merit and glorious blessedness in believing, if the Lord had always appeared in His Risen Body to the eyes of men. The Holy Ghost then has brought this great gift to them that should believe, that Him whom they should not see with the eyes of flesh, they might with a mind sobered from carnal desires, and inebriated with spiritual longings, sigh after. (Sermon 93.3)

For St. Augustine, the act of [living] faith is meritorious for eternal life. Calvin directly denies this.

In his work On Patience St. Augustine writes:

But, moreover, grace not only assists the just, but also justifies the ungodly. And therefore even when it does aid the just and seems to be rendered to his merits, not even then does it cease to be grace, because that which it aids it did itself bestow. (On Patience)

St. Augustine explains that grace is that by which we do good works, and grace is also merited by those good works. But these works are nevertheless still truly ours, even though made possible by grace. And therefore they are truly meritorious. Calvin mistakenly thought that if God is working in the believer to assist the just, then the believer cannot do anything truly meritorious. Calvin therefore seems to have not been able to conceive that God could aid the believer so as to make the believer capable of meritorious good works.

In his Exposition on Psalm 43, St. Augustine writes:

If you give your bread reluctantly, you have lost both the bread, and the merit of the action. Do it then from the heart: that He who sees in secret, Matthew 6:6 may say, while you are yet speaking, Here I am. (Exposition on Psalm 43)

For Calvin, if you give your bread reluctantly, you don’t lose any merit, because even if you give your bread cheerfully, there is no merit.

Elsewhere St. Augustine writes:

What merit, then, has man before grace which could make it possible for him to receive grace, when nothing but grace produces good merit in us; and what else but His gifts does God crown when He crowns our merits? For, just as in the beginning we obtained the mercy of faith, not because we were faithful but that we might become so, in like manner He will crown us at the end with eternal life, as it says, ‘with mercy and compassion.’ Not in vain, therefore, do we sing to God: ‘His mercy shall prevent me,’ and ‘His mercy shall follow me.’ Consequently, eternal life itself, which will certainly be possessed at the end without end, is in a sense awarded to antecedent merits, yet, because the same merits for which it is awarded are not effected by us through our sufficiency, but are effected in us by grace, even this very grace is so called for no other reason than that it is given freely; not, indeed, that it is not given for merit, but because the merits themselves are given for which it is given. …

After he had said: “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), anyone would have agreed that he could have made a most consistent and logical conclusion if he had said: “But the wages of justice is eternal life.” And it is true, because eternal life is awarded as if it were the wages which justice deserves, just as death is the wages which sin deserves. …

That to which eternal life is owed is true justice, but if it is true justice, it does not originate in you, ‘it is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.’ In order to have it, if you do have it, you must have received it, for ‘what good hast thou that thou hast not received?’ Therefore, O man, if you are to receive eternal life, it is indeed the wages of justice, but for you it is a grace just as justice itself is a grace. It would be paid as something due to you if the justice to which it is due had its origin in you. But now, ‘of his fulness we have received,’ not only the grace by which we now live uprightly and in labors unto the end, but also ‘grace for this grace,’ that afterward we may live in repose forever. (Letters, 194)

St. Augustine

Here a simplistic reading might take “nothing but grace produces good merit in us” as meaning that nothing but grace is operative and therefore there is no actual merit. But by carefully studying the context (including his other writings) we see that St. Augustine means just what all the other Church Fathers teach concerning merit, namely, that only by grace is merit made possible. St. Augustine is not teaching that only God is operative when believers do good works in a state of grace, or that the works of the believers done in grace are not meritorious. St. Augustine holds a middle position between Pelagianism, which would treat merit as possible without grace, and Calvinism, which would treat merit as impossible even with grace. So for St. Augustine, the believer does not merit eternal life without grace, but God has made it possible by grace for the believer in unmerited grace truly to merit eternal life by grace. By a grace that did not originate in the believer, the believer is able to merit eternal life. St. Augustine summarizes it by saying, “[eternal life] is indeed the wages of justice, but for you it is a grace just as justice itself is a grace.” By “justice itself is a grace” he means that being made just (through sanctifying grace) is an unmerited grace. Therefore, while the believer is able in justice to merit eternal life, that is only because the believer was made just by sanctifying grace, and was first enabled to merit at all by an elevation to the supernatural order by unmerited grace.

In his Tractates on the Gospel of John, St. Augustine writes:

But having obtained that grace of faith, you shall be just by faith (for the just lives by faith); and you will obtain favor of God by living by faith. And having obtained favor from God by living by faith you will receive immortality as a reward, and life eternal. And that is grace. For because of what merit do you receive life eternal? Because of grace. (Tractates on the Gospel of John 3.9)

Believers already in a state of grace then “obtain favor of God” by living in faith, receiving two things as a reward for their lived faithfulness: immortality and eternal life. Grace makes possible the merit through good works by which the believer receives the rewards of immortality and eternal life. This is incompatible with Calvin’s position. In another Tractate, St. Augustine writes:

[B]ut when they now hear, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you,” they are revived from their trouble, made certain and confident that after all the perils of temptations they shall dwell with Christ in the presence of God. For, albeit one is stronger than another, one wiser than another, one more righteous than another, “in the Father’s house there are many mansions;” none of them shall remain outside that house, where every one, according to his deserts, is to receive a mansion. All alike have that penny, which the householder orders to be given to all that have wrought in the vineyard, making no distinction therein between those who have labored less and those who have labored more: (Matt 20:9) by which penny, of course, is signified eternal life, whereto no one any longer lives to a different length than others, since in eternity life has no diversity in its measure. But the many mansions point to the different grades of merit in that one eternal life. For there is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differs from another star in glory; and so also the resurrection of the dead. The saints, like the stars in the sky, obtain in the kingdom different mansions of diverse degrees of brightness; but on account of that one penny no one is cut off from the kingdom; and God will be all in all in such a way, that, as God is love, (1 John 4:8) love will bring it about that what is possessed by each will be common to all. For in this way every one really possesses it, when he loves to see in another what he has not himself. There will not, therefore, be any envying amid this diversity of brightness, since in all of them will be reigning the unity of love. (Tractates on the Gospel of John, 67.2)

Here St. Augustine teaches that the many mansions signifies that each receives a mansion “according to his deserts.” Each believer (who dies in a state of grace) receives eternal life, and in that sense they all receive the penny, since in eternal life no one lives longer than anyone else who receives eternal life. But the many mansions “point to the different grades of merit in that one eternal life.” And these different grades of merit depend on labor, for some labored less and some labored more. What differs from saint to saint in heaven is not the length of life, but the degree of participation in God who is eternal life and pure happiness. Hence those saints who have merited more are eternally happier than are those saints who have merited less, though each saint is perfectly happy. The greater merit allows for a greater capacity for participation in God, and hence a greater capacity for eternal happiness. In another Tractate St. Augustine writes:

You signified by the preparation of those mansions, that the just ought to live by faith. (Rom 1:17) For he who is sojourning at a distance from the Lord has need to be living by faith, because by this we are prepared for beholding His countenance. (2 Cor 5:6-8) For blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God; (Matt 5:8) and He purifies their hearts by faith. (Acts 15:9) The former we find in the Gospel, the latter in the Acts of the Apostles. But the faith by which those who are yet to see God have their hearts purified, while sojourning at a distance here, believes what it does not see; for if there is sight, there is no longer faith. Merit is accumulating now to the believer, and then the reward is paid into the hand of the beholder. Let the Lord then go and prepare us a place; let Him go, that He may not be seen; and let Him remain concealed, that faith may be exercised. For then is the place preparing, if it is by faith we are living. Let the believing in that place be desired, that the place desired may itself be possessed; the longing of love is the preparation of the mansion. Prepare thus, Lord, what You are preparing; for You are preparing us for Yourself, and Yourself for us, inasmuch as You are preparing a place both for Yourself in us, and for us in You. For You have said, Abide in me, and I in you. As far as each one has been a partaker of You, some less, some more, such will be the diversity of rewards in proportion to the diversity of merits; such will be the multitude of mansions to suit the inequalities among their inmates; but all of them, none the less, eternally living, and endlessly blessed. (Tractates on the Gospel 68.3)

St. Augustine here explains that the reason why Christ had to go away, was to make merit possible. Otherwise, if we were to see Him here, there would be no room for faith, and therefore no possibility of merit. Christ’s preparing a place for us (i.e. many mansions) are different degrees of participation in the beatific vision merited by the greatness of our work in grace in this present life. Merit is now accumulating according to our good works, but then it will be paid in the form of a greater participation in God in the beatific vision. The diversity of the rewards depends on the diversity of our merits, that is, the degree to which each person participated in Christ now, in His suffering and His obedience to the Father in the mission given to Him.

In his work titled “On Grace and Free Will,” St. Augustine writes:

‘There is henceforth laid up for me,’ he says, ‘a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day’ (2 Tim. 4:8). Now, to whom should the righteous Judge award the crown, except to him in whom the merciful Father had bestowed grace? And how could the crown be one ‘of righteousness,’ unless the grace had preceded which ‘justifies the ungodly’? (On Grace and Free Will, 14)

The crown laid up for St. Paul could not be one of justice unless grace had gone ahead and made St. Paul (during his life on earth) worthy to receive that crown in the life to come. St. Augustine in no way shared Calvin’s nominalistic conception of imputation. Later in that same work, St. Augustine explains in more detail:

It is such faith [i.e. faith which works by love] which severs God’s faithful from unclean demons — for even these believe and tremble, (Jam 2:19) as the Apostle James says; but they do not do well. Therefore they possess not the faith by which the just man lives — the faith which works by love in such wise, that God recompenses it according to its works with eternal life. But inasmuch as we have even our good works from God, from whom likewise comes our faith and our love, therefore the selfsame great teacher of the Gentiles has designated eternal life itself as His gracious gift. (Rom 6:23)

And hence there arises no small question, which must be solved by the Lord’s gift. If eternal life is rendered to good works, as the Scripture most openly declares: Then He shall reward every man according to his works (Matt 16:27) how can eternal life be a matter of grace, seeing that grace is not rendered to works, but is given gratuitously, as the apostle himself tells us: To him that works is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt; (Rom 4:4) and again: There is a remnant saved according to the election of grace; with these words immediately subjoined: And if of grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace? (Rom 11:5-6) How, then, is eternal life by grace, when it is received from works? Does the apostle perchance not say that eternal life is a grace? Nay, he has so called it, with a clearness which none can possibly gainsay. It requires no acute intellect, but only an attentive reader, to discover this. For after saying, The wages of sin is death, he at once added, The grace of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom 6:23)

This question, then, seems to me to be by no means capable of solution, unless we understand that even those good works of ours, which are recompensed with eternal life, belong to the grace of God, because of what is said by the Lord Jesus: Without me you can do nothing. (John 15:5) And the apostle himself, after saying, By grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast (Eph 2:8-9) saw, of course, the possibility that men would think from this statement that good works are not necessary to those who believe, but that faith alone suffices for them; and again, the possibility of men’s boasting of their good works, as if they were of themselves capable of performing them. To meet, therefore, these opinions on both sides, he immediately added, For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them. (Eph 2:10) What is the purport of his saying, Not of works, lest any man should boast, while commending the grace of God? And then why does he afterwards, when giving a reason for using such words, say, For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works? Why, therefore, does it run, Not of works, lest any man should boast?

Now, hear and understand. Not of works is spoken of the works which you suppose have their origin in yourself alone; but you have to think of works for which God has moulded (that is, has formed and created) you. For of these he says, We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Now he does not here speak of that creation which made us human beings, but of that in reference to which one said who was already in full manhood, Create in me a clean heart, O God; concerning which also the apostle says, Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new. And all things are of God. (2 Cor 5:17-18) We are framed, therefore, that is, formed and created, in the good works which we have not ourselves prepared, but God has before ordained that we should walk in them. It follows, then, dearly beloved, beyond all doubt, that as your good life is nothing else than God’s grace, so also the eternal life which is the recompense of a good life is the grace of God; moreover it is given gratuitously, even as that is given gratuitously to which it is given. But that to which it is given is solely and simply grace; this therefore is also that which is given to it, because it is its reward—grace is for grace, as if remuneration for righteousness; in order that it may be true, because it is true, that God shall reward every man according to his works.

Perhaps you ask whether we ever read in the Sacred Scriptures of grace for grace. Well you possess the Gospel according to John, which is perfectly clear in its very great light. Here John the Baptist says of Christ: Of His fullness have we all received, even grace for grace. (John 1:16) So that out of His fullness we have received, according to our humble measure, our particles of ability as it were for leading good lives — according as God has dealt to every man his measure of faith; (Rom 12:3) because every man has his proper gift of God; one after this manner, and another after that. (1 Cor 7:7) And this is grace. But, over and above this, we shall also receive grace for grace, when we shall have awarded to us eternal life, of which the apostle said: The grace of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, (Rom 6:23) having just said that the wages of sin is death. Deservedly did he call it wages, because everlasting death is awarded as its proper due to diabolical service. Now, when it was in his power to say, and rightly to say: But the wages of righteousness is eternal life, he yet preferred to say: The grace of God is eternal life; in order that we may hence understand that God does not, for any merits of our own, but from His own divine compassion, prolong our existence to everlasting life. Even as the Psalmist says to his soul, Who crowns you with mercy and compassion. Well, now, is not a crown given as the reward of good deeds? It is, however, only because He works good works in good men, of whom it is said, It is God which works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure, (Phil 2:13) that the Psalm has it, as just now quoted: He crowns you with mercy and compassion, since it is through His mercy that we perform the good deeds to which the crown is awarded. It is not, however, to be for a moment supposed, because he said, It is God that works in you both to will and to do of his own good pleasure, that free will is taken away. If this, indeed, had been his meaning, he would not have said just before, Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. (Phil 2:12) For when the command is given to work, their free will is addressed; and when it is added, with fear and trembling, they are warned against boasting of their good deeds as if they were their own, by attributing to themselves the performance of anything good. It is pretty much as if the apostle had this question put to him: Why did you use the phrase, ‘with fear and trembling’? And as if he answered the inquiry of his examiners by telling them, For it is God which works in you. Because if you fear and tremble, you do not boast of your good works— as if they were your own, since it is God who works within you. (On Grace and Free Will, Chapters 18-21)

First St. Augustine points out that God recompenses with eternal life the [faith that works by love] according to its works. But even these good works are from God, who has given us faith and agape, so that eternal life is at the same time also “His gracious gift.” How can eternal life be both a merited reward and a gracious gift? St. Augustine answers this question by explaining that even our good works, by which eternal life is merited, are themselves a grace. According to St. Augustine, when St. Paul says “not of works,” he is referring to works that “have their origin in yourself alone.” In other words, according to St. Augustine, St. Paul is ruling out Pelagianism, by which human works done apart from grace could merit anything pertaining to heaven. But the works God has prepared for believers are works done in “faith working through love,” and these are supernatural gifts that have come down from heaven through the sacraments Christ has established in His Church as means of grace. In this supernatural faith and agape we live the life of God, He working through us and we participating in Him. In this way, the eternal life which is the “recompense of a good life” is a grace, because that by which it is merited is not from us alone by human nature. Rather, it is from God as grace above human nature, but in which we participate by God’s gratuitious gift. The grace of eternal life is justly rewarded for the grace which is the believer’s meritorious life lived out in the supernatural gifts of faith, hope, and agape.

But there is no pretend here. God does not pretend that the work is ours when it is not, or pretend that the work is meritorious when it is not. The work is truly ours, even though it is first from God who prepared it for us, and graciously aided us in doing it through actual grace, infused grace and supernatural virtues. And the work is truly meritorious of eternal life, because it is supernatural in its principle and end. According to St. Augustine, it is “through His mercy that we perform the good deeds to which the crown is awarded.” Nor must anyone suppose, says St. Augustine, that because God is working in us, that “free will is taken away.” In these good works, which God is working out in the believer, he remains truly free and truly praiseworthy or blameworthy for what he does. Hence the reward of eternal life is not merely feigned, but rightly deserved.

In his work titled “On the Morals of the Catholic Church,” St. Augustine writes:

Let us then, as many as have in view to reach eternal life, love God with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the mind. For eternal life contains the whole reward in the promise of which we rejoice; nor can the reward precede desert, nor be given to a man before he is worthy of it. What can be more unjust than this, and what is more just than God? We should not then demand the reward before we deserve to get it. Here, perhaps, it is not out of place to ask what is eternal life; or rather let us hear the Bestower of it: “This,” He says, “is life eternal, that they should know You, the true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (John 17:3) So eternal life is the knowledge of the truth. See, then, how perverse and preposterous is the character of those who think that their teaching of the knowledge of God will make us perfect, when this is the reward of those already perfect! What else, then, have we to do but first to love with full affection Him whom we desire to know? Hence arises that principle on which we have all along insisted, that there is nothing more wholesome in the Catholic Church than using authority before argument. (On the Morals of the Catholic Church, I.25)

St. Augustine explains that we must not “demand the reward” of eternal life before we are “worthy” of the reward and “deserve to get it.” And we are made worthy by loving God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind. Calvin denies even the possibility of loving God with all our heart, soul, and mind. Hence, St. Augustine’s words would make no sense according to Calvin’s theology.

In his work titled “On Rebuke and Grace,” St. Augustine writes:

Nevertheless, since even that life eternal itself, which, it is certain, is given as due to good works, is called by so great an apostle the grace of God, although grace is not rendered to works, but is given freely, it must be confessed without any doubt, that eternal life is called grace for the reason that it is rendered to those merits which grace has conferred upon man. Because that saying is rightly understood which in the gospel is read, “grace for grace,” John 1:16 — that is, for those merits which grace has conferred. (On Rebuke and Grace, 41)

St. Augustine here states that though it is “certain” that life eternal is given as “due to good works,” nevertheless it is also a grace of God. Eternal life is called a grace because it is rendered “to those merits which grace has conferred upon man.” Here again we see the same teaching on merit throughout St. Augustine’s works, namely, that eternal life is a reward for good works, but that these good works are given to us as grace, and hence eternal life is both a due reward and a grace that we could never possibly merit on our own.

St. Prosper of Aquitaine

This evidence from Scripture — and we could gather many other texts — demonstrates abundantly, I think, that faith which justifies a sinner cannot be had except for God’s gift, and that it is not a reward for previous merits. Rather is it given that it may be a source of merit. (The Call of All Nations, I.24)

St. Prosper teaches just what we saw in St. Augustine, and just what we see in the Council of Orange, namely, that faith is not a reward for previous merits, but is given by God that it may be a source of merit.

V. Scripture on Merit

Jesus speaks of heavenly rewards in many places in the gospels. The Beatitudes are one example.

Matthew 5:11-12: “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

We see this also in Matthew 25, where Jesus shows that heaven and hell are given as rewards for (among other things) the way we treat others. Jesus elsewhere says, “For whosoever shall give you to drink a cup of water in my name, because you belong to Christ, Amen, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.” (Mt. 10:42; Mark 9:41)

The reward given is not a greater share in a creature, but a greater share in the only One who is not a creature, namely, God Himself. So the rewards that Jesus speaks about in the gospels, and which are spoken about throughout the New Testament, are first eternal life (merited by living faith, which is itself a both a gift and a free act), and subsequently greater participations in eternal life.

Matt. 12:36 “And I say to you, that every careless word that men shall speak, they shall render account for it in the day of judgment.”

Matt. 16:27 “For the Son of man is to come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and then He will repay every man for what he has done.”

Mt. 19:21 “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.”

Matthew 19:29: “And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.”

Luke 6:35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High.”

Luke 6:38: “give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

Rom 2:6-7 “For He will render to every man according to his works, to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life.”

1 Corinthians 3:6-9: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are equal, and each shall receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.”

1 Cor 3:14-15 “If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.”

1 Cor 4:5 “Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts; and then each man’s praise will come to him from God.”

If Calvin were right, then when men’s motives were disclosed, no man would receive praise from God, since each man’s motives would be impure, and therefore worthy of damnation.

2 Cor 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”

2 Cor. 9:6 “The point is this: he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.”

Gal 6:8-9 “The one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.”

Ephesians 6:8: “knowing that whatever good any one does, he will receive the same again from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.”

Col 3:23-24 “Whatever your task, work heartily, as serving the Lord and not men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.”

2 Tim 4:8 “From now on there is laid up for me the crown of justice, which the Lord, the just Judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

Hebrews 6:10 “For God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love which you showed for His sake in serving the saints, as you still do.”

Hebrews 10:35-36 “Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that you may do the will of God and receive what is promised.”

Jas. 1:12 “Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love Him.”

1 Peter 1:17 “And if you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to
each man’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay
upon earth.”

2 John 8 “Look to yourselves, that you may not lose what you have worked for, but may win a full reward.”

Rev. 2:10 “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

Rev 2:23 “And I will kill her children with pestilence; and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.”

Rev 3:11-12 “Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. He who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God.”

Rev 22:11-12 “[L]et the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and let the one who is holy, still keep himself holy. Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.”

VI. Catholic Teaching on Merit

Fourth Lateran Council, AD 1215

But the sacrament of baptism (which at the invocation of God and the indivisible Trinity, namely, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, is solemnized in water) rightly conferred by anyone in the form of the Church is useful unto salvation for little ones and for adults. And if, after the reception of baptism, anyone shall have lapsed into sin, through true penance he can always be restored. Moreover, not only virgins and the continent but also married persons pleasing to God through right faith and good work merit to arrive at a blessed eternity. (Fourth Lateran Council, AD 1215)

St. Thomas Aquinas, the great Doctor of the Church, followed what Scripture, the Church Fathers, the Council of Orange, and the Fourth Lateran Council had taught before him. He did not hold Calvin’s monergistic conception of works done in the state of grace. His teaching on merit can be found in Question 114 of Summa Theologica I-II. Because of time limitations, I will not go through that Question in this post. But fundamentally, according to St. Thomas, God uses intermediate causes in order to communicate to His creatures the dignity of causality, and thereby to bring to Himself greater glory. St. Thomas writes:

In this way God is helped by us; inasmuch as we execute His orders, according to 1 Corinthians 3:9: “We are God’s co-workers.” Nor is this on account of any defect in the power of God, but because He employs intermediary causes, in order that the beauty of order may be preserved in the universe; and also that He may communicate to creatures the dignity of causality [ut etiam creaturis dignitatem causalitatis communicet].” (Summa Theologica I Q.23 a.8 ad.2.)

Notice that St. Thomas Aquinas quotes St. Paul’s statement that [the Apostles] are God’s “co-workers.” In the Greek this reads: θεοῦ γάρ ἐσμεν συνεργοί. “For we are God’s co-workers.” Of course St. Paul is speaking about the work of preaching the gospel and building up the Church through prayer and teaching and service. But, if man may be a co-worker with God in the salvation of others, then it would be ad hoc to claim that man may not in principle be a co-worker in his own salvation. St. Paul implies as much when he states explicitly to the Philippians that they should “work out [their] salvation with fear and trembling” [μετὰ φόβου καὶ τρόμου τὴν ἑαυτῶν σωτηρίαν κατεργάζεσθε]. (Phil 2:12)

This is a primary difference between Calvin and St. Thomas. Calvin views participation on the part of the creature as detracting from God’s glory. St. Thomas teaches that participation on the part of the creature glorifies God still more than if God were to do it all Himself. This is why St. Thomas explains that man in grace can merit eternal life condignly. (cf. Summa Theologica I-II Q. 114 a.3) This condign merit for heaven as our supernatural end is based on commutative justice, but made possible only by the infusion of sanctifying grace. Without the infusion of grace, there could be no merit for eternal life. Even the incarnate Christ Himself, without the infusion of grace, could not have merited eternal life in His human nature.

The Council of Trent likewise addresses Calvin’s notion that the just man only merits damnation, declaring:

[T]hose are opposed to the orthodox doctrine of religion, who assert that the just man sins, venially at least, in every good work; or, which is yet more insupportable, that he merits eternal punishments; as also those who state, that the just sin in all their works, if, in those works, they, together with this aim principally that God may be gloried, have in view also the eternal reward, in order to excite their sloth, and to encourage themselves to run in the course: whereas it is written, I have inclined my heart to do all thy justifications for the reward: and, concerning Moses, the Apostle saith, that he looked unto the reward. (Council of Trent, Session 6, Chapter 11)

Those who claim that the just man sins (either venially or merits eternal punishment) in every good work are opposed to the orthodox doctrine of the Christian religion. Those also are in error, according to Trent, who claim that the just sin in all their good works if these just persons do these good works while having the eternal reward in view.

I quoted the entirety of Chapter 16 of Session Six of the Council of Trent in the body of Prof. Feingold’s lecture above. In that chapter the Council teaches:

Hence, to those who work well unto the end (Mt 10:22) and trust in God, eternal life is to be offered, both as a grace mercifully promised to the sons of God through Christ Jesus, and as a reward promised by God himself, to be faithfully given to their good works and merits (Rom 6:22).

Notice that eternal life is both a gift and a reward. It is not either/or. Eternal life is a gift, because without grace, we could never attain it. But it is also a reward because, by grace, it is also a reward for works done in grace. This is the same teaching that all the Church Fathers taught, that the Council of Orange taught, that the Fourth Lateran Taught, and that St. Thomas taught. This shows that Luther and Calvin were the ones who deviated from the Tradition. The only alternative hypothesis is the ecclesial deism by which one dismisses the entirety of the prior Tradition, by claiming that “Catholic heresy” immediately took over the Church.

The relevant canons of the Council of Trent are:

Canon 26. If anyone says that the just ought not for the good works done in God to expect and hope for an eternal reward from God through His mercy and the merit of Jesus Christ, if by doing well and by keeping the divine commandments they persevere to the end, let him be anathema.

Canon 31. If anyone says that the one justified sins when he performs good works with a view to an eternal reward, let him be anathema.

Canon 32. If anyone says that the good works of the one justified are in such manner the gifts of God that they are not also the good merits of him justified; or that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, does not truly merit an increase of grace, eternal life, and in case he dies in grace, the attainment of eternal life itself and also an increase of glory, let him be anathema.

Canon 26 simply repeats what Scripture and the Fathers taught, namely, that for their good works done in grace, the just ought to expect and hope for an eternal reward from God through His mercy and the merit of Christ, by which sanctifying grace was won for us. Canon 31 denies that it is sinful to perform good works with a view to an eternal reward. St. Paul himself worked with a view toward an eternal reward, as shown in the passages of Scripture above. And Canon 32 denies the false dichotomy which claims that good works are either gifts of God’s grace and therefore not meritorious acts by the one justified, or they are mere human acts.

Throughout her history, when the Church speaks of merit toward heaven, she is referring to what the second Council of Orange says: recompense due (by justice) to good works if they are performed in grace. Apart from grace, we cannot merit anything pertaining to heaven, because heaven is supernatural, and our merit would at most be at the level of nature. But if a person is in a state of grace, then because his action is moved by actual grace and flows from a soul infused with sanctifying grace and agape, his action is ordered toward a supernatural end, and thereby merits a supernatural end, namely, the beatific vision. When the action flows from these supernatural principles within the soul, the action is meritorious for heaven, because in this way it is Christ who is working in and through us, by His Spirit, so that the action is supernatural, and yet at the same time the action is truly that of the human person, such that he is justly rewarded for the action. Yet also at the same time, his capacity to merit is due to God’s grace.

Absolutely speaking, no man can make a debtor out of God, because every good thing we have has come from Him as a gift. Because God has given us everything we have, we therefore stand in a relation of obligation to Him, by way of justice, even if we can never give back all that we have been given. That is all true even apart from grace. But God, by a free and tremendous gift of grace, elevates us by a participation in His divine nature such that by this grace we are proportionate to Him as our supernatural end, and thus capable of meriting that supernatural end by way of a divine covenant. By the infusion of sanctifying grace, and thus by our participation in the divine operation in us oriented toward God as our supernatural end, the very works which we do in God, fully satisfy the divine law of love and truly merit eternal life.

The key to understanding how the believer’s acts can be truly meritorious for salvation (i.e. eternal life) is found in the three word phrase “done in God.” Without grace, our acts can be more or less meritorious or demeritorious, not for heaven (which is supernatural) but for our degree of punishment and reward in a state of separation from God. Without grace, none of our acts would be “done in God,” and hence none of our acts could be meritorious for heaven, because of the infinite gap between God and what can be done in the power of our own finite nature as creatures. But by the infusion of sanctifying grace and agape (not just a co-spatial indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but an actual infusion such that we are truly made partakers in the divine nature) Christ works in and through us, and our acts done out of agape are not just ordered to God as our Creator and natural end, but to God as our Father and supernatural end. That is, by infused grace our acts done out of agape take on a supernatural character, directed toward heaven as our supernatural end. And this explains .16, what underlies those three words “done in God.”

VII. Conclusion

What do Calvinists lose by not believing in the possibility of merit? They lose merit, since by not believing that they can merit, they do not strive to merit. So what? They still can possibly go to heaven if they die as Calvinists in invincible ignorance of the truth of the Catholic Church and the necessity of entering into full communion with her, so what does it really matter?

Satan does everything he can to rob God of glory, and he does this in many ways. If he cannot lead a soul away from faith in Christ, he robs God of glory by robbing Christ’s saints of glory, by deceiving them into denying the doctrine of merit. And the consequence of this deception is that these believers are eternally robbed of merit they otherwise would have attained, had they believed the orthodox teaching of Scripture and the Church concerning merit. In this way, they are eternally robbed of the eternal happiness and joy they could have had, and would have had, had they lived a more righteous and holy life in love for God. If merit did not eternally matter, God would not have given us this time of probation. So every loss of possible merit eternally matters. The Christian whose works are burned up, and yet is saved, though he could have done many good or great works for Christ, suffers a great loss because he suffers an eternal loss. The Church thereby suffers an eternal loss. And most of all, the glory of God suffers an eternal loss, for if our obedience, sacrifice, and suffering for His sake is for the greater glory of God, then our laziness, apathy, and dissipation detracts from His glory.

Pride is rightly noted as the chief of the seven deadly sins. We are most effectively tempted to pride when it is covered in self-deprecation. And what could be more self-deprecating than claiming to give all the glory to God by denying that believers can merit anything from God? But such a denial, by going against the teaching of the Church Fathers and the Magisterium Christ established for His Church, exalts one’s own interpretation Scripture over that of the Church, and therefore over Christ Himself. By such pride, Satan seeks ever to rob God of eternal glory. But we must resist him, and humble ourselves like children, to trust Christ by trusting His Church over our own judgments. Only by such humility is faith possible.

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

1. See “Why Calvin did not Recognize the Distinction Between Mortal and Venial Sin,” where I explain why conceiving righteousness in terms of law-keeping is a deficient way of understanding righteousness.
2. See “Protestant Objections to the Catholic Doctrines of Original Justice and Original Sin.”
3. See “A Parable for Philosophers.”
4. See “Lawrence Feingold on Sanctifying Grace and Actual Grace.

Calvin writes:

For in every little transgression of the divinely commanded law, God’s authority is set aside. … [S]ince God has explained his will in the Law, every thing contrary to the Law is displeasing to him. Will they feign that the wrath of God is so disarmed that the punishment of death will not forthwith follow upon it? He has declared … “The soul that sinneth it shall die,” (Ezek. 18:20). Again, in the passage lately quoted, “The wages of sin is death.” … [L]et the children of God remember that all sin is mortal, because it is rebellion against the will of God, and necessarily provokes his anger; and because it is a violation of the Law, against every violation of which, without exception, the judgment of God has been pronounced. The faults of the saints are indeed venial, not, however, in their own nature, but because, through the mercy of God, they obtain pardon. (Institutes II.8.59)

Later in the Institutes Calvin writes:

Here they take refuge in the absurd distinction that some sins are venial and others mortal; …. Thus they insult and trifle with God. And yet, though they have the terms venial and mortal sin continually in their mouth, they have not yet been able to distinguish the one from the other, except by making impiety and impurity of heart to be venial sin. We, on the contrary, taught by the Scripture standard of righteousness and unrighteousness, declare that “the wages of sin is death;” and that “the soul that sinneth, it shall die,” (Rom. 6:23; Ezek. 18:20). The sins of believers are venial, not because they do not merit death, but because by the mercy of God there is “now no condemnation to those which are in Christ Jesus” their sin being not imputed, but effaced by pardon. (Institutes, III.4.28)

The substance of Calvin’s argument is that all sin is a violation of God’s law, and is therefore a rebellion against the will of God. But the wages of any rebellion against God’s will is eternal death, and therefore all sin is mortal sin. The sins of the saints are all venial only in the sense that though each sin deserves eternal condemnation, yet on account of the righteousness of Christ having been imputed to the saints, none of their sins is in effect mortal.

And the Westminster Confession of Faith follows Calvin in this:

[T]here is no sin so small, but it deserves damnation. (WCF XV.4)

In this respect Calvin and the Westminster Confession departed from the longstanding teaching of the Church. For example, St. Augustine of Hippo wrote:

For as, on the one hand, there are certain venial sins which do not hinder the righteous man from the attainment of eternal life, and which are unavoidable in this life, so, on the other hand, there are some good works which are of no avail to an ungodly man towards the attainment of everlasting life, although it would be very difficult to find the life of any very bad man whatever entirely without them. (On the Spirit and the Letter, 48)

Elsewhere he wrote:

He is worse who steals through coveting, than he who steals through pity: but if all theft be sin, from all theft we must abstain. For who can say that people may sin, even though one sin be damnable, another venial? (Against Lying, VIII.19)

Again, he wrote:

He, however, is not unreasonably said to walk blamelessly, not who has already reached the end of his journey, but who is pressing on towards the end in a blameless manner, free from damnable sins, and at the same time not neglecting to cleanse by almsgiving such sins as are venial. For the way in which we walk, that is, the road by which we reach perfection, is cleansed by clean prayer. That, however, is a clean prayer in which we say in truth, “Forgive us, as we ourselves forgive.” (Concerning Man’s Perfection in Righteousness, IX)

In another place he wrote:

Accordingly, if any Christian man loves a harlot, and, attaching himself to her, becomes one body, he has not now Christ for a foundation. But if any one loves his own wife, and loves her as Christ would have him love her, who can doubt that he has Christ for a foundation? But if he loves her in the world’s fashion, carnally, as the disease of lust prompts him, and as the Gentiles love who know not God, even this the apostle, or rather Christ by the apostle, allows as a venial fault. And therefore even such a man may have Christ for a foundation. For so long as he does not prefer such an affection or pleasure to Christ, Christ is his foundation, though on it he builds wood, hay, stubble; and therefore he shall be saved as by fire. For the fire of affliction shall burn such luxurious pleasures and earthly loves, though they be not damnable, because enjoyed in lawful wedlock. And of this fire the fuel is bereavement, and all those calamities which consume these joys. Consequently the superstructure will be loss to him who has built it, for he shall not retain it, but shall be agonized by the loss of those things in the enjoyment of which he found pleasure. But by this fire he shall be saved through virtue of the foundation, because even if a persecutor demanded whether he would retain Christ or these things, he would prefer Christ. (City of God, XI.26)

And elsewhere he writes:

While he is in the flesh, man cannot help but have at least some light sins. But do not despise these sins which we call “light”: if you take them for light when you weigh them, tremble when you count them. A number of light objects makes a great mass; a number of drops fills a river; a number of grains makes a heap. What then is our hope? Above all, confession. (In ep. Jo. 1,6)

To the Catechumens being prepared to be received into the Church through baptism, St. Augustine preached the following:

I do not tell you that you will live here without sin; but they are venial, without which this life is not. For the sake of all sins was Baptism provided; for the sake of light sins, without which we cannot be, was prayer provided. What has the Prayer? “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” Once for all we have washing in Baptism, every day we have washing in prayer. Only, do not commit those things for which you must needs be separated from Christ’s body: which be far from you! For those whom you have seen doing penance, have committed heinous things, either adulteries or some enormous crimes: for these they do penance. Because if theirs had been light sins, to blot out these daily prayer would suffice. In three ways then are sins remitted in the Church; by Baptism, by prayer, by the greater humility of penance; yet God does not remit sins but to the baptized. The very sins which He remits first, He remits not but to the baptized. When? When they are baptized. The sins which are after remitted upon prayer, upon penance, to whom He remits, it is to the baptized that He remits. (Sermon to Catechumens on the Creed)

According to St. Augustine, our venial sins committed after baptism are remitted through prayer. If a person commits a mortal sin, then he must be reconciled to the Church through the sacrament of penance; prayer is not sufficient.

St. Augustine refers to venial sins in a number of other places as well. He refers to it so often, and in passing, that it is clear that he is not saying something controversial in his time, something novel or needing to be supported or defended. He writes about the distinction between mortal and venial sin as something taken for granted. But his conception of venial sin is not like that of Calvin’s. Calvin thought all sin deserved eternal punishment, but that the sins of the saints were venial only in the sense that they do not pay any penalty for committing them, not because they are light sins not deserving of eternal punishment, as St. Augustine thought.

Roughly two hundred years later, Pope St. Gregory the Great (AD 590-604) wrote:

Our Lord saith in the Gospel: Walk whiles you have the light: and by his Prophet he saith: In time accepted have I heard thee, and in the day of salvation have I holpen thee: which the Apostle St. Paul expounding, saith: Behold, now is the time acceptable; behold, now the day of salvation. Solomon, likewise, saith: Whatsoever thy hand is able to do, work it instantly: for neither work, nor reason, nor knowledge, nor wisdom shall be in hell, whither thou dost hasten. David also saith: Because his mercy is for ever. By which sayings it is plain, that in such state as a man departeth out of this life, in the same he is presented in judgment before God. But yet we must believe that before the day of judgment there is a Purgatory fire for certain small sins: because our Saviour saith, that he which speaketh blasphemy against the holy Ghost, that it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come. Out of which sentence we learn, that some sins are forgiven in this world, and some other may be pardoned in the next: for that which is denied concerning one sin, is consequently understood to be granted touching some other. But yet this, as I said, we have not to believe but only concerning little and very small sins, as, for example, daily idle talk, immoderate laughter, negligence in the care of our family (which kind of offences scarce can they avoid, that know in what sort sin is to be shunned), ignorant errors in matters of no great weight: all which sins be punished after death, if men procured not pardon and remission for them in their lifetime: for when St. Paul saith, that Christ is the foundation: and by and by addeth: And if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble: the work of every one, of what kind it is, the fire shall try. If any man’s work abide which he built thereupon, he shall receive reward; if any mans work burn, he shall suffer detriment, but himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. For although these words may be understood of the fire of tribulation, which men suffer in this world: yet if any will interpret them of the fire of Purgatory, which shall be in the next life: then must he carefully consider, that the Apostle said not that he may be saved by fire, that buildeth upon this foundation iron, brass, or lead, that is, the greater sort of sins, and therefore more hard, and consequently not remissible in that place: but wood, hay, stubble, that is, little and very light sins, which the fire doth easily consume. Yet we have here further to consider, that none can be there purged, no, not for the least sins that be, unless in his lifetime he deserved by virtuous works to find such favour in that place. (Dialogues IV.39.)

In the thirteenth century St. Thomas Aquinas explained the difference between mortal and venial sin, as follows:

Now the difference between venial and mortal sin is consequent to the diversity of that inordinateness which constitutes the notion [i.e. definition] of sin. For inordinateness is twofold, one that destroys the principle of order, and another which, without destroying the principle of order, implies inordinateness in the things which follow the principle: thus, in an animal’s body, the frame may be so out of order that the vital principle is destroyed; this is the inordinateness of death; while, on the other hand, saving the vital principle, there may be disorder in the bodily humors; and then there is sickness. Now the principle of the entire moral order is the last end, which stands in the same relation to matters of action, as the indemonstrable principle does to matters of speculation (Ethic. vii, 8). Therefore when the soul is so disordered by sin as to turn away from its last end, viz. God, to Whom it is united by charity, there is mortal sin; but when it is disordered without turning away from God, there is venial sin. For even as in the body, the disorder of death which results from the destruction of the principle of life, is irreparable according to nature, while the disorder of sickness can be repaired by reason of the vital principle being preserved, so it is in matters concerning the soul. Because, in speculative matters, it is impossible to convince one who errs in the principles, whereas one who errs, but retains the principles, can be brought back to the truth by means of the principles. Likewise in practical matters, he who, by sinning, turns away from his last end, if we consider the nature of his sin, falls irreparably, and therefore is said to sin mortally and to deserve eternal punishment: whereas when a man sins without turning away from God, by the very nature of his sin, his disorder can be repaired, because the principle of the order is not destroyed; wherefore he is said to sin venially, because, to wit, he does not sin so as to deserve to be punished eternally. (Summa Theologica I-II Q.72 a.5 co.)¹

St. Thomas distinguishes between mortal and venial sin by explaining that mortal sin destroys the supernatural virtue of agape in the soul, and agape is the principle by which we are directed to heaven as our supernatural end. If agape is lost, the person is no longer ordered toward heaven, but instead toward some creature (e.g. himself) as his highest end. And he cannot be restored to friendship with God except by the power of God, since agape is supernatural, and we cannot give to ourselves what we do not have. Venial sins, by contrast, do not destroy agape from the soul, but are disordered in relation to the agape within the soul.²

Some articles later he explains why venial sins do no incur a debt of eternal punishment:

As stated above (Article 3), a sin incurs a debt of eternal punishment, in so far as it causes an irreparable disorder in the order of Divine justice, through being contrary to the very principle of that order, viz. the last end. Now it is evident that in some sins there is disorder indeed, but such as not to involve contrariety in respect of the last end, but only in respect of things referable to the end, in so far as one is too much or too little intent on them without prejudicing the order to the last end: as, for instance, when a man is too fond of some temporal thing, yet would not offend God for its sake, by breaking one of His commandments. Consequently such sins do not incur everlasting, but only temporal punishment. (Summa Theologica I-II Q.87 a.5.)

According to St. Thomas, those sins that destroy charity in the soul cause an irreparable disorder, and therefore incur eternal punishment if the person dies in that state. Some sins are not in themselves contrary to the last end (i.e. God) because the disorder in these sins is not contrary to the last end per se, but only to the perfection of those acts directed to that end. As an example, St. Thomas describes a man who is too fond of some temporal thing, but would not offend God for the sake of this temporal thing. Because these sins are not contrary to the last end per se, they do not incur everlasting punishment, but only temporal punishment.³ What makes a sin mortal, and another venial, is therefore whether the disorder in the will is incompatible with the virtue of agape or disordered yet still compatible with agape. St. Thomas writes:

When the will sets itself upon something that is of its nature incompatible with the charity that orients man toward his ultimate end, then the sin is mortal by its very object . . . whether it contradicts the love of God, such as blasphemy or perjury, or the love of neighbor, such as homicide or adultery. . . . But when the sinner’s will is set upon something that of its nature involves a disorder, but is not opposed to the love of God and neighbor, such as thoughtless chatter or immoderate laughter and the like, such sins are venial. (Summa Theologica I-II Q.88 a.2.)⁴

And in continuity with the Tradition handed down from the Church Fathers, the Catholic Church teaches the same. The Church teaches that salvation is ultimately and irreducibly personal in this sense: salvation is a loving union of human persons with the Divine Persons, and thereby with all those other created persons, human and angelic, also in loving communion with God. So until we are perfectly united to God in the beatific vision, in this life our freedom is such that we can choose to turn away from loving God. This turning away from God can take place in a single free act. And that is what mortal sin is. It does not have to be an act of apostasy, i.e. abandoning of faith. A person can commit a mortal sin and still affirm the Creed. Mortal sin is in the will, when a person chooses with full knowledge and complete consent, to love some creature over God, whether or not he maintains belief in all the articles of faith. The Catechism teaches:

Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back. (CCC 1861)

One act of mortal sin destroys charity (i.e. agape) in the heart:

Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him. Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it. (CCC 1855. )

According to the Catechism mortal sin destroys charity in the heart by a grave violation of God’s law. For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.” (CCC 1857) Mortal sin turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to Him.

To cease to adhere to God as our final end and to cease giving ourselves to Him for His own sake, is to commit mortal sin. That can be expressed in different kinds of mortal sins (e.g. murder, adultery, etc.) but this is what makes a mortal sin a mortal sin, namely, that in committing this act, with full knowledge and complete consent, we are choosing to make ourselves (or some other creature) our final end, and act not out of love for God as our final end, but love for some creature. And no man can serve two masters. Hence no man can love some creature (e.g. himself) as his highest end, and love God as his highest end. To choose to make oneself one’s own god, is to vanquish charity from the soul.

Venial sin, by contrast, is sin in which, though God remains our final end whom we love for His sake, our action deviates from the means by which to attain that end. In venial sin the believer retains love for God as his highest end, but falls short in the order by which he moves toward God as his highest end. Venial sin thus allows charity to subsist, even though it offends, wounds, and weakens charity. Deliberate and unrepented venial sin disposes us little by little to commit mortal sin. (CCC 1863) But venial sin does not in itself deprive us of charity, sanctifying grace, or eternal life. We experience this sort of distinction even in ordinary friendships, where we understand the difference between an act that hurts the friend but in which the offender still loves the other person, and an act making it clear that the person does not love the other person — and this sort of act destroys the friendship.

The Explanation of Calvin’s Error

So why did Calvin reject the distinction between mortal and venial sins? Calvin, having been trained as a lawyer, approached the question of righteousness under the concept of law, and therefore conceived of righteousness fundamentally in term in terms of law-keeping. From that point of view, there is no basis for a distinction between mortal sins and venial sins. Sin is a transgression of the law of God, and although one could acknowledge that not all sins are of equal gravity, nevertheless, it would (from that point of view) be entirely ad hoc to claim that some violations of God’s law deserve eternal punishment, while others do not. Violation of God’s law is violation of God’s law, opposing God and therefore deserving of eternal separation from God. End of discussion.

Calvin’s theology does not show a grasp of the relation of love to the fulfillment of the law. For St. Augustine, however, this is the very heart of the gospel, that by the sanctifying grace merited for us by the work of Christ, the agape of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and only by this agape is the law of God fulfilled in us. See “St. Augustine on Law and Grace.” Over and over St. Augustine repeats the Scriptural teaching that love fulfills the law (Rom. 13:8,10; Gal. 5:14).

According to St. Augustine, the infused grace given to us in baptism through the work of Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy that God would take away their stony hearts, and write the law on their hearts (Jer. 31:33; Ez. 36:26). He would do this by pouring out grace and agape into our hearts. (Rom. 5:5) This is the whole purpose of the gospel, to bring about the “obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5; 16:26) that fulfills the law through living faith [faith informed by agape], so that we might attain to union with God in the beatific vision; this “obedience of faith” is the faith that works through love. This love is the law-written-on-the-heart (Rom 2:15, 29), which is the “new life of the Spirit” in contrast to “the old written code.” (Rom 7:6) This living faith is itself a gift of grace, through Christ, (Rom 3:24); it makes us “doers of the law” who will be justified on that Day. (Rom 2:13) By writing the law on our hearts through the infusion of sanctifying grace and agape, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets us free from the law of sin and death, (Rom. 8:2) doing what the written code could not do. In this way, the requirement of the law is fulfilled in us in the way that we walk, walking not according to the flesh, but walking according to the agape infused into us by the indwelling Spirit. (Rom. 8:4)

Through Christ’s obedience unto death, we receive the infused grace and agape by which we are made righteous. (Rom. 5:17,19) St. Paul argues that our justification is by living faith, not by [dead] works (Rom. 3:28), precisely because what matters, and what has always mattered, is whether or not there is agape in the heart. Only the heart having living faith is the heart that has the “righteousness of faith.” (Rom. 4:13) By our union with Christ through baptism we have died to sin so that we might walk in newness of life. (Rom. 6:2,4) Romans 6:14 would be a non sequitur if St. Paul were not writing about sanctifying grace. By this infused sanctifying grace and indwelling of the Spirit we have become “obedient from the heart,” (Rom 6:17) set free from sin and become slaves of righteousness, putting to death the deeds of the flesh (Rom 8:13)

This is what the Pharisees had not understood. St. Paul explains that the Gentiles attained the righteousness that is by living faith, while Israel though pursuing the righteousness that is conceived as keeping the [external] written code, thereby failed to attain the true righteousness that comes only by infused living faith. Why did Israel fail? Because they did not pursue it through living faith, but as though it could be attained by mere external works. (Rom. 9:30-32)

Ironically, however, Calvin mistakenly conceives righteousness as did the Pharisees, namely, as perfect fulfillment of the written law, and not as infused agape by which the law is truly fulfilled. Therefore for Calvin every infraction of the law is worthy of eternal damnation, and there is no basis for the mortal/venial distinction.

The role of agape in fulfilling the law allows for a principled difference between violations of the law that are incompatible with agape and violations of the law that are compatible with agape. And that is precisely what differentiates mortal and venial sins, respectively. Because agape fulfills the law (Rom 13:8,10; Gal 5:14), there is a distinction between sins that go against agape, and sins that fall short of the perfect expression of agape but do not go against agape. In this way differences in the condition of the heart from which a disordered action comes, with respect to agape, allow for a principled difference between mortal and venial sins. But if one approaches the question of sin only from the point of view of the letter of the law, one cannot see the basis for any such distinction.

Calvin thinks that James 2:10 supports his position. “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” (James 2:10) He likewise takes “the soul that sins, it shall die” (Ez. 18:20) as supporting his position. But the Catholic understanding of these verses is that they are about mortal sin, and it would be question-begging to hang the justification for a schism on the assumption that there is no such thing as venial sin, and that St. Augustine et al were wrong about the existence of venial sin.

The passage in James would not make sense if it were not indirectly referring to some principle that underlies the law, namely, agape. How does a person who steals thereby violate all the other commands of the law? He does so by going against the agape that fulfills the whole law. And therefore the kind of violation of the law in view here in this verse is best understood as one that is contrary to agape. If we go ‘behind’ the law to see the role that agape is playing in the fulfillment of the law, then instead of making righteousness equivalent to fulfilling the letter, we can see righteousness as the fulfillment of the spirit, even when we fall short in the letter.

Other Scripture Evidence

The distinction between mortal and venial sin can be found in other passages as well. St. Peter says, “Above all hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8) As long as agape remains in the soul, venial sins are not damning, because they do not remove the person from a state of grace.

St. John at the end of his first epistle makes a distinction between two essentially different types of sin: a sin that leads to death, and a sin that does not lead to death. Elsewhere in the epistle he says that no one who is born of God sins (1 John 3:9; 5:18), but in the same epistle he says that if we say we have no sin we are deceiving ourselves and making God a liar (1 John 1:8, 10). Those four verses are reconciled with each other by the mortal/venial distinction St. John makes at the end of his letter. (1 John 5:16-17) The meaning is that no one who is born of God commits mortal sins; to do so would be to drive out the life of God and agape and the indwelling Holy Spirit. But if any Christian were to say that he had no venial sins, he would be deceiving himself. St. John distinguishes mortal and venial sins at the end of his epistle:

If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and [God] shall give life to him, to those committing sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death. I am not saying he should ask for that kind. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is a sin that does not lead to death. (1 John 5:16-17)

St. John is not writing here about unbelievers who have never been regenerated. He is writing about believers (“a brother”) who commit venial sins. In this passage he makes an explicit distinction between a sin that does not lead to death, and a sin that leads to death. But, he makes the distinction between mortal and venial sins, and implies that someone who has fallen into mortal sin is in a very different condition from that of someone who has fallen into venial sin.

Concerning this passage St. Jerome writes:

Some offenses are light, some heavy. It is one thing to owe ten thousand talents, another to owe a farthing. We shall have to give account of the idle word no less than of adultery; but it is not the same thing to be put to the blush, and to be put upon the rack, to grow red in the face and to ensure lasting torment. Do you think I am merely expressing my own views? Hear what the Apostle John says: 1 John 5:16 He who knows that his brother sins a sin not unto death, let him ask, and he shall give him life, even to him that sins not unto death. But he that has sinned unto death, who shall pray for him? You observe that if we entreat for smaller offenses, we obtain pardon: if for greater ones, it is difficult to obtain our request: and that there is a great difference between sins. (Against Jovinianus, II.30.)

Fellow Christians can through their prayers bring healing and restoration to the brother whom they see committing a venial sin. But while we can and should intercede for the repentance of the person in mortal sin, he cannot be restored except through the sacrament of penance administered through the clergy. The person who has fallen into mortal sin has fallen from grace, and so cannot be restored except by the Church (i.e. by the bishop or priest), through the sacrament of penance. The prayer of a brother is not sufficient to restore the one who has fallen into mortal sin — he must go to confession.

My point in citing this passage, however, is to show that in Scripture there is a clear reference to a sin that does not lead to death, alongside of a sin that does lead to death. And the existence of a sin that does not lead to death, which for St. John is not simply any sin that a believer happens to commit, is incompatible with the Calvinist notion that every sin is deserving of eternal punishment.

This distinction between mortal and venial sin makes possible the truth of many passages in the Old Testament, such as “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time.” (Gen 6:9) This is how Job was blameless and upright. (Job 1:1,8; 2:3) This is how Joseph was a “righteous man.” (Mt. 1:19) This is how Abraham could have a discussion with God about the “righteous” and the wicked in Sodom; that conversation would not have been possible if all people are unrighteous. Does that mean that Noah never sinned? No, as Ecclesiastes 7:20 says, “there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.” So Noah was both righteous and blameless, and yet not without sin. That is because though he sinned venially, he did not sin mortally. And that is true of all the Old Testament saints who died in friendship with God. They fulfilled the law not necessarily in the letter, but in the spirit of the law, which is the essence of the law. And the spirit of the law is agape. Because they had agape, they fulfilled the law, for as St. Paul teaches, agape fulfills the law (Rom 13:8, 10; Gal 5:14, James 2:8).

The Greatest Commandment and Venial Sin

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. (Matthew 22:37)

Calvin refers to this verse in the Institutes, writing:

When the mind, under the influence of distrust, looks elsewhere or is seized with some sudden desire to transfer its blessedness to some other quarter, whence are these movements, however evanescent, but just because there is some empty corner in the soul to receive such temptations? And, not to lengthen out the discussion, there is a precept to love God with the whole heart, and mind, and soul; and, therefore, if all the powers of the soul are not directed to the love of God, there is a departure from the obedience of the Law; because those internal enemies which rise up against the dominion of God, and countermand his edicts prove that his throne is not well established in our consciences. It has been shown that the last commandment goes to this extent. Has some undue longing sprung up in our mind? Then we are chargeable with covetousness, and stand convicted as transgressors of the Law. (Institutes, II.8.58)

For Calvin, if a wayward or inordinate thought or desire springs into the mind, then one has violated the command to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. One is therefore deserving of eternal damnation. This is in part because for Calvin concupiscence is sin. Disordered desires are themselves hateful in God’s sight, and thus sufficient (apart from extrinsic imputation of Christ’s righteousness) to damn a soul. I have addressed that in “Protestant Objections to the Catholic Doctrines of Original Justice and Original Sin.”

Nevertheless, when Protestants hear or read this verse, they tend to think of the command in terms of exclusive and absolutely maximal conative exertion. So the feeling is a bit like running a long race, and then, after completing it, asking yourself whether possibly you could have dug down deeper, and given some additional effort. And usually it is very difficult to believe that you could not have given some additional modicum of effort at some point in the race. You always think, I probably could have cut off at least another hundredth of a second. I could have done a little more, fought a little harder, pushed myself to go a little faster, endured a little more pain, etc.

That is the way many Protestants read this verse; it is the way Calvin understood the verse. And so, of course, on that interpretation, it is impossible in this life to love God with all one’s heart, because no matter how much one loves God, one could always have dug down a little deeper, and loved Him a little more, done some other loving deed for Him, spent a little more time in prayer, given one more cup of cold water to another needy person in His Name, etc. The I-could-have-done-more way of interpreting the standard God calls us to in this verse suggests then (on this view) that God is calling us to recognize that we cannot actually fulfill this command, and that we therefore need someone (i.e. Christ) to do this in our place, and have that active obedience then imputed to our accounts.

But that is not how this verse is understood in the Catholic tradition. What Christ means by “all your heart” is not the degree of conative exertion, but that love of God is the highest end or purpose in the hierarchy of ends in our life. It is a teleological standard, not a conative standard. This is what agape is, a supernatural love for God above [i.e. more than] all other things, for His sake. This is why charity (the Latin term referring to agape) is defined as the virtue by which we adhere to God as our final end and give ourselves to Him for His own sake. That definition captures the meaning of the ‘all’ in the command to love God with all our hearts; God is highest (i.e. “final”) in the order of ends, and He is highest in that He is not pursued as means to some other end (hence “for His sake”.) So love of God, here, is not referring to a feeling or an emotion or affection. It is the supreme act of the will (and the will’s disposition to this supreme act) to order everything else in one’s life, including oneself, toward blessing and glorifying God, for His sake. When we order our lives to God as our highest end, even higher than ourselves, and do so for His sake, and not fundamentally in order to get something from Him, that is loving God with all our heart. Of course sometimes this requires self-sacrifice and exertion of the will, to say no to evil, and yes to God, much as a married man must sometimes say no to temptation and yes to fidelity to his spouse. But the degree of exertion of the will is not the meaning of the ‘all’ in the command to love God with all our heart. Rather, it is the place of God in the hierarchy of ends in our will.

The quotation from St. Augustine’s City of God above makes this clear. The man who loves his wife with selfish aspects, but nevertheless “if a persecutor demanded whether he would retain Christ or these things, he would prefer Christ” is loving God with all his heart, and is therefore saved. In Calvin’s theology, what St. Augustine says there makes no sense, but in Catholic theology it makes perfect sense.

Because Protestant theologies generally do not recognize the distinction between mortal sin and venial sin, their tendency is either to treat all sins as mortal (i.e. each in themselves making us deserving of eternal damnation), or all as venial (i.e. incapable of causing a loss of heaven). If all sin were mortal sin, then we would be losing our salvation every day. Protestant theologies seek to get around this problem only by construing salvation as fundamentally juridical. But then salvation is not fundamentally personal. If all sin were mortal, and believers sin every day in thought, word, and deed, then believers would still be dead in their sins, or there would be no fundamental difference between the regenerate and those dead in their sins.

If, on the other hand, all sins were venial, then again, our relationship with God would be quite independent of what we say and do, both to God and to others. And this too treats salvation as impersonal. So the distinction between mortal and venial sin has significant implications, as does overlooking this distinction. The Catholic doctrine avoids both errors, because it recognizes that love is at the center of our friendship with God, and sin must therefore be understood in relation to love.

Feast of St. Leo the Great

1. See also Summa Theologica I-II Q.87 a.5.
2. See Summa Theologica I-II Q.88 a.1.
3. See “Indulgences, the Treasury of Merit and the Communion of Saints.”
4. See also Summa Theologica II-II Q.24 a.10.

Mike Hsu

I’m grateful for Mike’s interaction with my article, because I believe that entering into dialogue is a first step toward attaining that unity Christ prayed that His followers would enjoy. At the same time, I would like to clear up a misunderstanding, and explain why a call to seek to establish a “united ecclesial structure” from one that does not already exist is problematic.

I agree that Christians should seek for “united hearts,” if that means to be united in love for Christ, and thereby in love for one another for Christ’s sake. But just as we cannot love what we do not know, so the foundation of charity between believers is unity of faith. St. Peter wrote, “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.” (1 Peter 1:22) And Pope Leo XIII wrote, “But how can hearts be united in perfect Charity where minds do not agree in Faith?”¹ Our capacity for loving one another deeply from the heart as fellow servants of Christ depends on together obeying and sharing the truth from Christ and about Christ. The more a fellow Christian believes that I deny some essential of faith, or believes that I affirm something heretical, the less we are capable of having hearts united in agape. So the pursuit of “united hearts” requires the pursuit of the “one faith” (Eph. 4:5) that has been handed down from the Apostles. But pursuing the one faith by which we can be united in heart requires pursuing a unified ecclesial structure, because otherwise there are as many interpretations as there are interpreters. Therefore, without ever sacrificing truth for unity, all Christians should be pursuing not only unity of faith but also a united ecclesial structure. To deny that would be to abandon altogether the concept of schism as an evil.² Affirming the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds involves affirming the unity and catholicity of the Church, and so recognizing the sinfulness of schism, and thus the necessity of pursuing and preserving structural unity in one body. No denomination limited to a certain geography or certain ethnicity, and not a member of a worldwide organization can claim to be “catholic,” and therefore can claim to be the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church Christ founded.³

Denying the obligation to pursue visible unity with other Christians would require giving up the claim to believe in a visible Church, whether universal or local.⁴ That is because to deny our obligation to pursue a united ecclesial structure with other Christians is likewise to deny our obligation to belong to a local visible church.⁵ Claiming that we must belong to a local visible church but that visible churches need not belong to a universal ecclesial structure would be ad hoc and therefore self-refuting. The ad hoc nature of man-made denominations ‘disallowing’ do-it-yourself church’ is not lost on the emergent generation.⁶ All the reasons one could provide for the necessity of the visibility and structure of the local Church equally support the necessity of the visibility and structure of the universal Church. For these reasons I’ll take as a given that we agree that all Christians ought to be pursuing a unified ecclesial structure, each without ever denying what he believes to be true, or in any other way going against his conscience. The point in question, therefore, is whether the unified ecclesial structure all Christians ought to be pursuing must already exist now.

The reason why the visible ecclesial unity toward which Protestant-Catholic reunion is ordered must already be present can be found in “Pentecost, Babel, and the Ecumenical Imperative.” By his own efforts man can effect only a man-made unity ordered to earthly, temporal ends. Unity of this sort is not in itself evil, nor is the pursuit of such unity in itself evil. Natural virtues are not evil, and neither is the man-made peace that results from peace-treaties, human alliances, human compacts, man-made clubs, organizations, corporations, or other such agreements or societies. But the sort of peace and unity achieved in those cases is not a supernatural peace or a supernatural unity. They are each instances of a merely natural peace and natural unity.⁷

By contrast, the peace of God surpasses all human comprehension (Philippians 4:7). Jesus, speaking to His Apostles, said, “My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you.” (John 14:27) Christ’s peace is not a natural peace that can be established by men. Because this peace surpasses human comprehension, it cannot be established by mere men, according to the natural power of men. Christ’s peace is a supernatural peace that comes only from Him. St. Paul teaches that we are called into one body to be ruled by this supernatural peace in Christ’s mystical Body, i.e. the Church. (1 Cor 12) He writes, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.” (Col 3:15) The presence of this peace in His Body is not an accident, because Christ Himself “is our peace,” (Eph. 2:14) and by His Spirit we enter into Christ’s peace through union with Him in His mystical Body.⁸ The unity of the Spirit (Eph 4:3) is a participation in the peace of Christ, through sharing in His Holy Spirit who animates His Body, the Church.

The Dilemma

For this reason, seeking to establish a visible ecclesial structure, while presuming that the visible ecclesial structure Christ established does not exist, entails a dilemma. Either Christ endowed His Church with a unified ecclesial structure that was later lost, and which mere men are seeking to reestablish, or Christ did not endow His Church with a unified ecclesial structure, and ecumenically minded men seeking to establish a visible ecclesial structure are seeking to establish something beyond what Christ intended. Let’s consider each horn separately.

Horn A: On one horn of the dilemma is the claim that Christ endowed His Church with a unified ecclesial structure that was later lost, and which mere men now seek to reestablish. If that unified ecclesial structure was essential to Christ’s Church, then adopting this horn obviously presupposes ecclesial deism, because it requires believing that Christ allowed something essential to His Church to be lost, and this entails that the Church herself was lost. Moreover, because it affirms the responsibility of all Christians to pursue the realization of a unified ecclesial structure, it either attributes to mere men the ability to establish a supernatural unity, or it treats the sort of unity Christ established in His Church as a merely natural unity that men can establish themselves. The former notion entails an ecclesial pelagianism,⁹ while the latter notion implicitly denies the unique deity of Christ, by treating the Church He founded as a merely natural society on the same level as any other human society formed by mere men, rather than as a supernatural society which is Christ’s Mystical Body of which He is the Head.

On the other hand, the notion that the unified ecclesial structure Christ established was only a kind of extraneous decoration, nice to have but not essential, is deeply problematic. It treats the unity of the Church’s governing and teaching authority as a mere adornment that is not part of the Church’s nature, but as something that can be removed without any injury to the Church’s life. However, the unity of the governing and teaching authority is essential for the very existence of a divinely established governing and teaching authority. If the Church’s governing and teaching authority could be divided into various competing factions, none having more authority than the others, there would cease to be a governing and teaching authority in the Church.¹⁰ So for this reason this position reduces to a kind of biblicism (i.e. solo scriptura), in which each individual retains ultimate magisterial authority for himself.¹¹

This notion that the unified ecclesial structure is not essential to the Church reduces the Church to something that is in essence invisible, and accidentally visible only when the Church happens to possess a unified ecclesial structure, perhaps only at the very beginning of her history. As a result, schism would never be intrinsically wrong. Whenever any Christian disagreed with any other Christians, he could legitimately separate from them and form a different sect, so long as he held no bitterness in his heart. And therefore this notion undermines the very prospect of pursuing a unified ecclesial structure, since such a structure would be entirely devoid of authority, and entirely conditional on unanimous consent among all Christians, something that both common sense and Church history indicate does not happen. Without mutual recognition of divinely established magisterial authority, there are almost as many opinions as there are persons.

Not only that, but whatever unified ecclesial structure men would establish would not be a restablishment of the Church Christ founded. Whatever new institution ecumenically minded Christians established would be a numerically different institution from the one Christ founded, i.e. it would be an altogether new institution that had never before existed. It would therefore not be a divine institution (i.e. one founded by Christ) nor would Christ be its Head, nor would the Holy Spirit be its animating principle. It would be merely a man-made institution. The future unified ecclesial structure intended by Protestants seeking visible ecclesial unity can be a divine institution only if it is the very same divine institution that the incarnate Christ Himself founded during His time on earth, and which was born on the day of Pentecost. And that means that ecumenically minded Protestants seeking a supernatural unified ecclesial structure are in fact, even if unaware of this truth, seeking the same unified ecclesial structure Christ founded and which has existed in unbroken continuity to this day.

For all these reasons, the notion that Christ endowed His Church with a unified ecclesial structure that was later lost, and which mere men can reestablish, is deeply problematic.

Horn B: On the other horn of the dilemma is the notion that Christ did not endow His Church with a unified ecclesial structure, but now all Christians ought to strive to establish a unified ecclesial structure. The primary problem with this notion is that in seeking to establish a unified ecclesial structure for the “one holy catholic Church,” ecumenically minded Christians would be seeking to establish something beyond what Christ Himself intended or instituted when He established His Church. In that case, if Christ did not found a body with a unified ecclesial structure, then to seek to bring all Christians into a body with a structural unity is a form of “outdoing Christ,” that is, it seeks to go beyond the unity that Christ Himself saw fit to establish in His Church by imposing on what He founded as a merely invisible entity a visible unity He Himself did not see fit to establish. But seeking to outdo the omniscient, omnipotent God involves no small hubris. Claiming to worship Christ as God, while seeking to outdo Him in the establishment of ecclesial unity, is likewise no small performative contradiction, and undermines the claim to be following Christ as God.¹²

Someone might claim that Christ secretly instructed His Apostles to pass along a message through the generations, instructing them to wait until the third millennium to establish a visible ecclesial structure. But the notion that Christ established His Church only as an invisible unity while secretly transmitting the instruction that His disciples should someday (in the third millennium) upgrade the unity of the Church to visible structural unity is a kind of gnosticism. It requires believing in some secret tradition that has not been recorded or developed by any Church Father. Such a claim deserves no further consideration.

This horn of the dilemma faces a further undesirable consequence. Any attempt to build a man-made catholic (i.e. universal) ‘Church,’ rather than being reconciled to the Catholic Church Christ founded, would be the religious equivalent of attempting to restart the building of the Tower of Babel. As I explained in “Pentecost, Babel, and the Ecumenical Imperative,” an attempt by man to form a universal Church is not essentially different from the mission of the Antichrist, who seeks to replace the Church Christ founded with a universal Church founded by man, and thus (despite the appearances) ordered ultimately to the worship of man.

Therefore, the notion that Christ did not endow His Church with a unified ecclesial structure but that we all ought now to establish a unified ecclesial structure, is also problematic.

So both horns of the dilemma are untenable. The only remaining possibility is that Christ endowed His Church with a unified ecclesial structure that has never been lost, and therefore that the full visible reunion of Christians now separated by schism involves a return to that same continuing Catholic Church.¹³ And that entails that the goal of ecumenical reunion is an ecumenism of return. As St. Jerome said, “We must abide in that Church, which was founded by the Apostles, and endures to this day.”¹⁴ Pope Pius XI similarly writes:

[T]he union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. …

Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ no man can be or remain who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and his legitimate successors. Did not the ancestors of those who are now entangled in the errors of Photius and the [Protestant] Reformers, obey the Bishop of Rome, the chief shepherd of souls? Alas their children left the home of their fathers, but it did not fall to the ground and perish for ever, for it was supported by God. Let them therefore return to their common Father, who, forgetting the insults previously heaped on the Apostolic See, will receive them in the most loving fashion. For if, as they continually state, they long to be united with Us and ours, why do they not hasten to enter the Church, “the Mother and mistress of all Christ’s faithful”? Let them hear Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325) crying out: “The Catholic Church is alone in keeping the true worship. This is the fount of truth, this the house of Faith, this the temple of God: if any man enter not here, or if any man go forth from it, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation. Let none delude himself with obstinate wrangling. For life and salvation are here concerned, which will be lost and entirely destroyed, unless their interests are carefully and assiduously kept in mind.”¹⁵

Let, therefore, the separated children draw nigh to the Apostolic See, set up in the City which Peter and Paul, the Princes of the Apostles, consecrated by their blood; to that See, We repeat, which is “the root and womb whence the Church of God springs,” not with the intention and the hope that “the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” will cast aside the integrity of the faith and tolerate their errors, but, on the contrary, that they themselves submit to its teaching and government. Would that it were Our happy lot to do that which so many of Our predecessors could not, to embrace with fatherly affection those children, whose unhappy separation from Us We now bewail. Would that God our Savior, “Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” would hear us when We humbly beg that He would deign to recall all who stray to the unity of the Church!”¹⁶

To the ears of many Protestants, such words are sectarian and arrogant. Yet if ‘sectarianism’ is simply defined as the claim that the body to which one belongs is the Church Christ founded, then assuming that ‘sectarianism’ [so defined] is always wrong presupposes either that Christ never founded a visible Church or that, having done so, at some point He allowed it to fall out of existence. Either way, such an assumption is not theologically neutral; it assumes precisely what is in question between Protestants and Catholics, namely, either that Christ did not found a visible Church,¹⁷ or that if He did, some kind of ecclesial deism is true. The person making this assumption has placed himself in an epistemic position in which he cannot come to discover whether Christ did in fact found a visible Church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. In his mind he has already ruled out the very possibility, by assuming that such a thing would be sectarian, and that sectarianism is always wrong.

Nor is it arrogant to claim to be what one actually is. Hence the notion that claiming to be the Church Christ founded is ipso facto arrogant likewise presupposes that there is no body which is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church Christ founded, just as the notion that claiming to be the Son of God is ipso facto arrogant presupposes that there is no Son of God. So the charge that claiming to be the Church Christ founded is arrogant is a question-begging charge, i.e. it assumes precisely what is in question.

I certainly welcome the call among ecumenically minded Protestants for “united hearts” and a “united ecclesial structure.” What I have done here is show why the pursuit of a “united ecclesial structure” in an ecumenism of non-return faces an intractable dilemma. The solution to that dilemma is an ecumenism of return.¹⁸

May the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, and unite our hearts in the one body to which we have been called in Christ.

1. Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae.
2. See “Michael Horton on Schism as Heresy.”
3. On ‘catholicity’ as a mark of the Church see comment #21 in the “Collapsing Ecclesiology” thread.
4. cf. Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter XXV.2.
5. See Baptist pastor Mark Dever’s comments on the importance of being part of a local church.
6. See A Reflection on PCA Pastor Terry Johnson’s “Our Collapsing Ecclesiology,”.
7. For a helpful explanation of the natural/supernatural distinction, see “Nature, Grace, and Man’s Supernatural End: Feingold, Kline, and Clark” or see Lawrence Feingold’s The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and His Interpreters.
8. See Mystici Corporis Christi.
9. Pelagianism is the notion that without grace man can attain the supernatural end which is heaven. Ecclesial pelagianism is the notion that mere men can establish a supernatural society.
10. See “Philosophy and the Papacy.”
11. Cf. “Solo Scripture, Sola Scriptura, and the Question of Interpretive Authority.”
12. I first wrote about this horn of the dilemma in 2007, as I explained in “Institutional Unity and Outdoing Christ.”
13. This is why Protestantism by its origins is oriented not to the future establishment of a new Catholic Church, but to a return to the Catholic Church; see “Reformation Sunday 2011: How Would Protestants Know When to Return?”
14. Quoted in the Catholic Encyclopedia article titled “Apostolicity.”
15. Divine Institutes IV.30.
16. Mortalium Animos, 10-12.
17. “Christ Founded a Visible Church.”
18. See, for example, “Reformation Sunday 2011: How Would Protestants Know When to Return?.”

Lawrence Feingold

Lecture: The Mystery of Grace (October 19, 2011)

The Nature of Grace (1′)

Old Testament foreshadowing of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling (1′)
New Testament fulfillment of the Jewish feast of Sukkot (2′)
Grace is the heart of the gospel (7′)
Why we need sanctifying grace to reach our supernatural end (9′)
External means and internal means (12′)
The various meanings of the term ‘grace’ (15′)
Sanctifying grace: an infused supernatural gift that makes us favorable to God as sharers in his own divine nature (17′)

Grace and nature: grace is doubly gratuitous (25′)

Why grace is above what is due to nature

The Love of God is the source of grace (35′)

We receive a greater gift on the day of our baptism than on the day of our conception.
Some receive more grace than do others; those given more grace are given more to be a source to others. (39′)

The grace given to Mary (41′)

John Paul II’s encyclical: The Mother of the Redeemer

Sanctifying grace as a participation in the divine nature and divine filiation (43′)

Sanctifying grace and adoption (48′)

The theological virtues that come with sanctifying grace: faith, hope, charity (50′)

Nature –> Powers –> Actions
Sanctifying grace is an elevation of human nature by participation in the divine nature.
Theological virtues are elevations of human powers by infused supernatural inclinations.
Actual grace is the supernatural movement from God through which, with our free cooperation, we perform acts ordered to a supernatural end.

Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (58′)

The theological virtue of charity (61′)

Questions and Answers:

(1) What form of grace motivates us to repent, to receive the sacrament of penance? (1′)

(2) Can grace be created, or is it infinite? (1′)

(3) Was the giving to humans of the divine life shown in other ways than just in Scripture, saying that there is an afterlife for the Jews? (9′)

(4) Is confirmation a second seed after baptism? (13′)

(5) Can the theological virtues be compared to the Trinity in that one proceeds from the other? (14′)

(6) In Romans 4:18, St. Paul is talking about Abraham, and it says that in hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations. What does it mean that he “believed against hope”? (15′)

(7) It would seem that true union with God implies participation, which also implies grace in the second sense, that is, an effect in us. Could you contrast this briefly with the Protestant view that grace is only divine favor? (17′)

(8) What is the relation between the union we have with the Holy Spirit through sanctifying grace, and the union we have with Christ in the Mystical Body? (25′)

(9) Is there a natural favor that is God’s favor towards us because of our human nature? (27′)

(10) Do the saints in heaven grow in charity? (29′)

(11) How does the doctrine of sanctifying grace avoid fusion, that is, the swallowing up of human nature by the divine nature? (30′)

(12) When then does St. Paul mean when he says that in Christ we are “new creatures”? (35′)

(13) Some Eastern Orthodox deny the concept of created grace, claiming that there is only uncreated grace (i.e. the Holy Spirit). Why couldn’t sanctifying grace merely be the Holy Spirit indwelling, without any created grace? (36′)

(14) When you said that we participate in the filial love between Christ and the Father it sounded like you were saying that we participate primarily in the Person of the Holy Spirit. How does that relate to participation in the divine nature? (38′)

(15) How does one know that he is acting in true fraternal charity rather than simply out of natural impulse to generosity? (44′)

(16) If a man has grown older than the age of reason, but has not been baptized, and has not committed a mortal sin, what is the state of his soul with respect to God? (45′)

Lecture: Actual Grace and Our Cooperation (October 26, 2011)

The Distinction between Sanctifying Grace and Actual Grace (1′)

Sanctifying grace (also called habitual grace)
Actual grace (transient divine aid, a divine impulse/movement enabling us to accomplish an action leading to salvation or sanctification)

The distinction between these two types of grace is explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: (6′)

The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. … Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by his love. Habitual grace, the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God’s call, is distinguished from actual graces which refer to God’s interventions, whether at the beginning of conversion or in the course of the work of sanctification. (CCC 1999-2000)

The distinction between actual grace and sanctifying grace explained by the distinction between efficient causes and formal causes. (9′)
Why actual grace must come before sanctifying grace. (11′)
Why we need actual grace after receiving sanctifying grace. (13′)
How infants can receive sanctifying grace without first receiving actual grace. (14′)

St. Thomas Aquinas explains the distinction between actual grace and sanctifying grace: (17′)

[M]an is aided by God’s gratuitous will in two ways: first, inasmuch as man’s soul is moved by God to know or will or do something, and in this way the gratuitous effect in man is not a quality, but a movement of the soul; for “motion is the act of the mover in the moved.” Secondly, man is helped by God’s gratuitous will, inasmuch as a habitual gift is infused by God into the soul; and for this reason, that it is not fitting that God should provide less for those He loves, that they may acquire supernatural good, than for creatures, whom He loves that they may acquire natural good. Now He so provides for natural creatures, that not merely does He move them to their natural acts, but He bestows upon them certain forms and powers, which are the principles of acts, in order that they may of themselves be inclined to these movements, and thus the movements whereby they are moved by God become natural and easy to creatures, according to Wisdom 8:1: “she . . . ordereth all things sweetly.” Much more therefore does He infuse into such as He moves towards the acquisition of supernatural good, certain forms or supernatural qualities, whereby they may be moved by Him sweetly and promptly to acquire eternal good; and thus the gift of grace is a quality. (Summa Theologica I-II q. 110, a. 2.)

The Nature of Actual Grace

God gives actual grace to all persons, but does not give sanctifying grace to all persons. (20′)
Actual grace is for the sake of sanctifying grace; sanctifying grace is more important than actual grace. (22′)
Once we have sanctifying grace, then actual grace is for the sake of growing in sanctifying grace. (23′)

Two Kinds of Actual Grace: Operative Grace and Cooperative Grace (25′)

Operative grace (26′)
Cooperative grace (29′)

Example of St. Paul on the road to Damascus (31′)
Example of Zacchaeus (33′)

Actual grace is resistible (35′)

Example of St. Augustine’s conversion.
Operative grace cannot be blocked; it is efficacious by its very nature.
But we can refuse to cooperate with actual grace, and therefore block cooperative grace, which is not efficacious of itself alone. (37′)

St. Augustine writes: (39′)

For He who first works in us the power to will is the same who cooperates in bringing this work to perfection in those who will it. Accordingly, the Apostle says: “I am convinced of this, that he who has begun a good work in you will bring it to perfection until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6). God, then, works in us, without our cooperation, the power to will, but once we begin to will, and do so in a way that brings us to act, then it is that He cooperates with us. But if He does not work in us the power to will or does not cooperate in our act of willing, we are powerless to perform good works of a salutary nature. (Grace and Free Will, 17.33)

Cooperative grace requires a certain initiative on our part, a self-moving (43′)

Example of Mary freely consenting. (44′)

If we consent to actual grace, God receives the glory. If we resist actual grace, we are to blame. (45′)

St. Thomas Aquinas (49′)

Hence in that effect in which our mind is moved and does not move, but in which God is the sole mover, the operation is attributed to God, and it is with reference to this that we speak of “operating grace.” But in that effect in which our mind both moves and is moved, the operation is not only attributed to God, but also to the soul; and it is with reference to this that we speak of “cooperating grace.” Now there is a double act in us. First, there is the interior act of the will, and with regard to this act the will is a thing moved, and God is the mover; and especially when the will, which hitherto willed evil, begins to will good. And hence, inasmuch as God moves the human mind to this act, we speak of operating grace. But there is another, exterior act; and since it is commanded by the will, as was shown above (Question 17, Article 9) the operation of this act is attributed to the will. And because God assists us in this act, both by strengthening our will interiorly so as to attain to the act, and by granting outwardly the capability of operating, it is with respect to this that we speak of cooperating grace. Hence after the aforesaid words Augustine subjoins: “He operates that we may will; and when we will, He cooperates that we may perfect.” And thus if grace is taken for God’s gratuitous motion whereby He moves us to meritorious good, it is fittingly divided into operating and cooperating grace. (Summa Theologica I-II q. 111, a. 2.)

Operative grace also called prevenient (or antecedent) grace; cooperative grace also called subsequent (or consequent) grace (51′)

Revelation 3:20 “Behold, I stand at the door and knock ….” (53′)
John 6:44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” (55′)
Parable of the sower (58′)
Hardening of the heart (59′)
Psalm 95:8, Jeremiah 17:23

Denying these two kinds of actual grace leads to two heresies: (62′)

Semipelagianism errs by denying the necessity of operative grace
Lutheranism errs by denying the possibility of cooperative grace (i.e. treating all grace as operative grace).

Pelagianism (62′)

Reduced grace to supernatural instruction

St. Augustine: The necessity of actual grace moving us inwardly, not merely through external [supernatural] instruction. (67′)

Canons condemning Pelagianism (68′)

At the Council of Carthage: Denzinger 104-105
Council of Trent, Session 6, Canons 1-3

The principle of proportionality (69′)

Semipelagianism (71′)

Denzinger 373, 375

Questions and Answers

(1) What is the work of grace in infant baptism? It doesn’t look as though it can do any more than get rid of original sin, and yet original sin’s grip on a child seems small. (1′)

(2) Does the sanctifying grace received by the infant in baptism make him more disposed to receive and respond to subsequent actual graces? (2′)

(3) If one has committed a mortal sin, or is estranged from the Church, how does one come into (or ensure that he is in) a state of grace? (6′)

(4) Does God give everyone sufficient grace to make an act of perfect contrition? (12′)

(5) One can receive many positive or good inspirations in a day. How do you discern whether they are operative graces you should cooperate with or just a good idea you have in mind? (14′)

(6) In purgatory the souls are being purified by fire, for nothing unclean can enter. Are the souls there receiving God’s chisel, His operative grace? Is grace at work in purgatory, or is it beyond that? (21′)

(7) How do Jewish people see grace? (24′)

(8) It’s been said that we can only receive grace in sacraments if we are properly disposed. So is proper disposition the same as not resisting grace? (29′)

(9) Are temptations negative graces? (32′)

(10) Could a good person be held at a given level because of God’s plan, or are they stuck at a given level because they are not corresponding? (33′)

(11) Are we accountable for the graces that we did not cooperate with, given that we are in a state of grace when when we die? How does the tepid soul respond to grace? (37′)