[Appendix] Nineteenth Distinction

Single Question Whether Christ Merited Grace and Glory and Remission of Guilt and Punishment for all Men

Bonaventure, 3 Sent. d.18 q. 3, a.2
Scotus, 3 Sent. d.19 q.1
Thomas, ST IIIa q.48 a.1
Richard of St. Victor, 3 Sent. d.19 q.3
Durandus, 3 Sent. d.18 q.3

1. About the nineteenth distinction the question asked is whether Christ merited remission of guilt and punishment and conferring of grace and glory for all men, past, present, and future.

2. That he did not: merit is always ordered to reward, and reward always exceeds merit; but the rewards of all men do not exceed the merits of Christ, nor are they more noble; therefore etc.

3. Against this is Pope Leo in his sermon on the nativity: ‘as he found no one free of guilt, so he came to liberate all’.

To the Question

4. I reply that Christ did merit for all as regard sufficiency but not as regard efficacy.

5. The proof of the first is that the sins and punishments of all men cannot be formally infinite, but the merits of Christ had a certain infinity; for just as the life of Christ is said to be infinite because the life of Christ is the life of the Word, so the death of Christ is said to be infinite to the extent that the death of Christ is the death of the Word or of God; and the meritorious works of Christ are said to be certain infinites to the extent that they are the works of the Word.

6. The second [n.4] is also proved because the acts of active things are in the things that receive and are well disposed to them; but not all men disposed, and dispose, themselves for remission of sins and of punishment and for grace and for glory.

7. Against the first proof [n.5]: the works of Christ were not uncreated and did not pertain to his divinity; therefore they were created and finite and pertain to his humanity; therefore they do not have true infinity but infinity is said hyperbolically. There is a confirmation too, that acts belong only to supposits as they are agents, but the agent does not give infinity to the effect; therefore the meritorious works of Christ, since they pertain to humanity, are not infinite, although they are elicited by the supposit of the Word; for the formal principle of such works is finite (namely humanity) and from the principle or the humanity they have finitudeThe text has ‘infinity’, which seems to be a typographical error. ¹⁰⁰; therefore etc.

8. I reply then that just as everything that is from God is good because God wills it and not conversely, so what is good is meritorious because God accepts it and not conversely. Therefore, to the extent God can actively accept something, to that extent the good thing can passively receive the acceptance; therefore an equivalence between the good that is accepted and the accepting of it is not necessarily required, and this is plain from an example. For he who strikes the ball on the playing field wins the prize, not indeed that the act of striking the thing is by nature equivalent to the prize, but it is equivalent by the voluntary acceptance of the one who institutes the game, and so the prize is due also according to distributive justice.

9. I say then to the point at issue [n7] that the merit of Christ was in itself and formally finite because elicited by the medium of a finite principle, and the merits of Christ do not bestow infinity on themselves by their respect to the supposit or to the end, for all these respects are finite; and so Christ’s merit in its formal idea and by the nature of the thing was only finitely acceptable; and yet God accepted it infinitely in extension, that is, for the deletion of infinite sins, whether the sins existed together or in succession, and so for liberation from infinite punishments and for the conferring of infinite graces and glories; and therefore the saints say that Christ’s merit was sufficient for the redemption of infinite worlds, if infinite worlds existed. And this is true, because the whole Trinity voluntarily actively accepted Christ’s merits. And the Trinity could thus accept by congruity the works of Christ more than of someone else because of the condition of the supposit of Christ who did them - even if not wholly because of the work worked, yet in itself and from the nature of the thing.

10. But what did Christ merit for us? I say that he merited the first grace wholly, without any assistance on our part, by means of the sacraments, as is plain of baptism where grace is conferred without any previous disposition in children (and this grace opposes original sin, which is the first sin). He also merited for us a second grace in penance, opposing actual mortal sin; but for this grace a disposition and contrition and the like are required on our part; and so in the case of the baptism of adults some contrition is required for actual sins. Christ also merited for us the opening of the gates of Paradise.

11. But there is a doubt here, that if Christ merited for all of us the first grace against original sin then, since the Fathers of the Old Testament had grace destroying original sin (otherwise they would have been damned), it follows that the reward preceded the merit; and so by parity of reasoning the opinion of Master Lombard in Book 2 could be true, that grace preceded merit in the Angels such that they merited later in the guardianship they exercise toward us. And if it be said that the passion of Christ as foreseen by God and offered to him and accepted by him merited grace for everyone and that, as such, it preceded, then by parity of reasoning it can be said that the passion could from eternity have merited predestination for the predestinate (for it was thus foreseen and accepted from eternity), and so predestination will have a cause.

12. I say to the first point [about the Angels, n.11] that the reward that properly and principally corresponds in us to the merit of Christ is eternal glory, which was given to no one before Christ’s passion took place in fact; however it came from his merits, because their future satisfaction for the human race was presented to God in advance of all the Fathers, indeed from eternity, and was also foreseen by God and accepted by him as being a satisfaction and as meriting grace and glory - but in different ways; for glory was not to be given before Christ’s works were performed in fact; and thus it is plain that Christ’s merit in some way preceded all grace and remission of guilt; and so it is plain that what the Master says about the Angels does not hold.

13. But a response remains to be made to the second objection, about predestination [n.11]. I say to this point that the consequence does not hold. For God predestined the elect in a moment of nature prior to his foreseeing Christ’s passion; for this reason, note that the order in question was of the following sort from eternity. For God from eternity in the first moment of nature understood himself under the idea of supreme good. In the second moment he understood creatures in himself. In the third moment he foresaw that some of them must, of their own liberty, finally act well and some finally act badly; and also he saw the former whom he indeed predestined, and about the rest he had a negative act in not predestining them. In the fourth moment he saw that all of them, the former and the latter, would fall in Adam. In the fifth moment he preordained and foresaw a remedy, namely as to how all had to be redeemed through the merits of his Son’s passion.

14. And to the principal argument [n.2] the response is plain from what has been said.