c) In connection with this subject theologians are wont to discuss the question whether or not the forfeiture of sanctifying grace involves the loss of its supernatural concomitants.
Theological love or charity is substantially identical with sanctifying grace, or at least inseparable from it, and hence both are gained and lost together. This is an article of faith. To lose sanctifying grace, therefore, is to lose theological love. On the other hand, it is equally de fide that theological faith (habitus fidei) is not destroyed by mortal sin;[1215] it can be lost only by the sin of unbelief.[1216] The same is true, mutatis mutandis, of theological [pg 396] hope. True, the Church has not definitely declared her mind with regard to hope, but it may be set down as her teaching that hope is not lost with grace and charity but survives like faith.[1217] The two contrary opposites of hope are desperation and presumption, concerning which theologians commonly hold that the former destroys hope, while the latter probably does not. But even if hope and charity are lost, faith may remain in the soul like a solitary root, from which, under more favorable conditions, new life is apt to spring. As regards the infused moral virtues and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost (and, a fortiori, His personal indwelling in the soul),[1218] it is the unanimous teaching that these disappear with sanctifying grace and charity, even though faith and hope survive. The reason is that these virtues and gifts are merely supernatural adjuncts of sanctifying grace and cannot persist without it. “Accessorium sequitur principale.”[1219]
Chapter III. The Fruits Of Justification, Or The Merit Of Good Works
The principal fruit of justification, according to the Tridentine Council,[1220] is the meritoriousness of all good works performed in the state of sanctifying grace.
Merit (meritum), as we have explained in the first part of this treatise,[1221] is that property of a good work which entitles the doer to a reward (praemium, merces).
Ethics and theology distinguish two kinds of merit: (1) condign merit or merit in the strict sense of the term (meritum adaequatum sive de condigno), and (2) congruous merit or quasi-merit (meritum inadaequatum sive de congruo). Condign merit supposes an equality between service and return. It is measured by commutative justice and confers a strict claim to a reward. Congruous merit, owing to its inadequacy and the lack of strict proportion between service and recompense, confers no such claim except on grounds of equity.[1222]
In this treatise we are concerned with merit only in the theological sense of the term, i.e. supernatural merit. We shall consider (1) its Existence,[1223] (2) its Requisites,[1224] and (3) its Objects.[1225]