Aquinas and merit

Strict justice, Aquinas argued, is only possible between equals, and since God and man are not equals there is never strict justice in God’s dealings with us. Further, God being God, He is never put in debt to His creatures, never obligated to give anything, unless by His own prior self-binding. McGrath writes, “Merit before God is based upon a divine ordination according to which God will reward a particular work with a specified reward. God cannot be thought of as being in debt to humanity, in any sense of the notion; God’s faithfulness, understood as self-obligation rather thyan obligation to humanity, is reflected in the divine ordination that God will reward such acts in this manner. Merit arises from grace, in that God can be said to bestow quality upon his creatures in an act of grace. Merit is therefore not based upon strict justice, but upon iustitia secundum quid , ‘a sort of justice,’ which is based upon God’s decision to reward creatures. In effect, Thomas develops Augustine’s principle, that merit is based upon the divine promise, to the effect that all merit before God is ‘improper’ merit, in the sense that it is not based upon strict justice between equals.”