Prima Secundae
282. Aquinas on Merit: Can Man Merit Anything from God, and Can He Merit Eternal Life Without Grace? (ST I-II q.114 a.1–2)
Class of 2016-04-21
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/282-aquinas-on-merit-can-man-merit-anything-from-god-and-can/

[0:00] Effect now of grace, right? If you go back here to the proemium here, chapter what, beginning of one thirteen, I guess. We divide the consideration of grace into three parts, right? Consideration of grace in itself, right? And then the causes of grace, right? And then the what, effects of grace? A division into three, if I might be so bold as to. Okay, if you go back to the proemium at the beginning of one thirteen, which is the proemium to the third part, he says, "Then we're not to consider about the effects of grace.

[0:40] " And first of the justification of the impious, which is an effect of gratia operantis, right? Operating grace. Second of merit, which is an effect of grace co-operantis, cooperating grace. So we just finished the part of the justification of the impious, right?

[1:01] And now the effect merit, which is an effect of cooperating grace. So he recalls that at the beginning of the first at the question one fourteen. Then we're not to consider about merit, which is an effect of gratia cooperantis on cooperating grace. And about this ten things are asked.

[1:30] First, whether man is able to merit something from God. Secondly, whether someone without grace is able to merit eternal life. Sounds strange Sounds modern

[1:54] Third, whether someone by grace is able to merit eternal life, worthily, right ex condigno, right? Now remember that passage I was pointing out there in in the epistle of what who was it the last one there Jude was it? And didn't he say when he was talking about faith, hope, and charity, wasn't it? Yeah, building up your soul by faith, hope, and charity, and then he speaks of what.

[2:33] Yeah, but but before he uses the word eternal life, he speaks, and then Christ with his elias is is mercy, right? I said, now what was he saying? That is that because of the fact that it's still mercy and not justice. It's justice, but it's still an element of mercy. Well, this may be to cast some light upon that thing, huh? Whether ex condigno, right? Huh? Because that would suddenly be, you know.

[3:03] Justice, right? Give me my due, you know. Does Shakespeare say about the dead, "Home are gone and tame their wages"? Your merits, I guess, huh?

[3:23] Fourth, whether grace is a beginning of meriting by means of charity, principality, huh? Well, I think that probably so. Yeah, I think that. Okay, now a little more standing back. Now, whether man is able to merit the first grace?

[3:46] I listen to EWTN sometimes. He's always interviewing some some person who's come back to the faith or discovered the faith, or something like that. Whether they merit the first grace, you know, that led them this way, huh?

[4:03] Six, whether man is able to merit it for another, right? Well, did what's the mother there of Augustine? Monica. Monica, yeah. Did she merit the conversion of her son by her prayers? Oh, the prayers, the tears and prayers. How could they fail to do something, right? Yeah. Good to have a mother like that, huh?

[4:34] Seven, whether someone can merit for himself reparation after lapse. I hope so. Whether someone can merit the growth of grace or what, charity, huh?

[4:52] Now, whether someone is able to merit final perseverance, that's the ultimate grace, final perseverance. I don't know why it's just stuck in at the end? Whether temporal goods fall under merit, huh? Sounds like a candlelighter stuck there in there.

[5:18] Like a little piece of filet mignon there. which, I didn't buy it. Nothing like that. It's still to come expensive, you know. How are you going to, can I merit temporal goods? Can I merit filet mignon, you know, I don't deserve a filet mignon, huh? Only the French should think of that title, filet mignon, right? Favorite, I guess. mignon means favorite or something, you know, something like that.

[5:47] Yeah. Okay. Okay. To the first, then one proceeds thus. It seems that man is not able to merit something from God, right, huh? For no one would seem to merit reward from this that he renders to another what he owes him.

[6:16] But through all the goods which we do, right, we are not able sufficiently to recompense God what we owe him, right? But that always we what? ought to owe what? Yeah, semper amplius debiamus, huh? As even the philosopher says in the eighth book of the Ethics. My goodness.

[6:48] That way refers to Lectio 14 there. So that's pretty good for the old Aristotle. And then this one, I'm sure they were going to use this one here. When Luke seventeen ten, it says, "When all the things that are commanded we have done, we shall say we are useless servants. What we ought to do, we have done. That's all. Yeah.

[7:23] What's what's in? Do you know that play of Shakespeare's, or As You Like It? You know the old servant there, you know, out of service and fidelity is, you know, not a reward. You know, he's, you know, he's the antique world. What's good in the antique world is seeing them, right? That's a great play, right? You know, it's really appreciation of nature, huh? Beautiful things in there.

[7:49] Beautiful play. You know, As You Like It. Yeah, it's a very good play. Be reading it. I'm trying to get through the comedy of errors make sure That's a great play there.

[8:08] Therefore, man is not able to merit something from God. Let's see how he answers that? First, therefore, it, should be said that man, in so far as by his own will, does that which he ought, he merits.

[8:35] Otherwise, the act of justice by which someone renders what what he owes would not be what meritorious. Is it meritorious that I pay my debts?

[8:50] Yeah, but because it's it's voluntary, right? See, I pay my income taxes, which they force me to. They'll they'll stop my my bank account.

[9:03] And they talk the the IRS, you know, is collection the greatest collection agency in the world, right? I always hear on the radio there, and I turn on coming up here, you know, they're advertising, you know, this group. If you're you've had to pay your taxes last year, we'll help you, you know, get straight with the thing, and all these these organizations to help you. Maybe people worked at the IRS at one time and know the the ropes a little bit.

[9:30] Ah, you know, they can save you, you know, some money. You know, don't delay, the longer you delay, and then talk about all the things that they could do to close your account or seize it, and you find a lock on your your your

[9:50] yeah, or your your wages. You know, sorry, we your wages went to the IRS today, didn't go to you. You get paid. Every Friday or something like that. You know, where's my, where's my check? Where's my weekly check? It's the IRS. That's where it is. I couldn't believe the other day I stopped a guy. The guy was probably to pay in the store. He bought three lottery tickets.

[10:19] Seventy dollars for three tickets? Just three? I don't know what they were. Whatever the other street is, three tickets. He said one of those, one of those, one of those. And seventy bucks. Wow. He used to be a dollar. I don't know what. Whatever it was, seventy dollars. Well, maybe, maybe he got a tank of gas, had a big truck. I don't know. But maybe he played like multiple times through the computer, seventy dollars worth too.

[11:03] Oh yeah. You could do that in New York too. But I, I just couldn't get over. Not only just the three tickets, but somebody spent seventy bucks on a lotto. I mean, that's just insane. That's why the church, the bishops are opposed to the gambling casinos because the poor people, you know. Yeah. And hit more than the. To get in the hole. Yeah. It's, it's, it's all completely.

[11:12] It's very calculated. Gives you just enough to hope that you might get more, and then takes your money. That's it. Two students back to school. One was a super math genius, so he could do all the counting, figure out all the odds perfectly. And so he wasn't very popular, I think, in the casinos. Another one was an Irish guy of Irish descent who had the proverbial luck and charisma of the Irish.

[11:37] And he didn't know what he was doing but he always won. He was welcome. He always had a room available free because apparently people, you know, gamble more when he was there or something. Interesting that sort of comparison between the two.

[12:03] Okay, so second objection now. However, from this that someone what makes himself better, right? Or he progresses himself. He does not seem to merit before himself or before the one to whom what. Nothing profits, right?

[12:29] But man, by operating well, profits himself, I guess, huh? Or another man, not over God. For it is said in Job 30 verse seven, if you act justly, what? What do you give to him? Yeah. Or what? From your hand does he take, right, huh?

[12:53] Therefore, God is not able to merit anything, or therefore, man is not able to merit anything from God, huh? So people, you know, they can pray like this, you know, like they're giving God something, right?

[13:18] I used to compare it, you know, to the parent that gives the kid a little what? Yeah, yeah, give him, give him. But what's the word for it though? The lounge, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the kid, out of that lounge, he goes buys a rose or something for his his mother, right, for Mother's Day or whatever it is, you know. Well, he just, you know, and they still appreciate it, right?

[13:44] You know, even though you know that that you gave him the money that which which he bought the rose, right? But then he went out and bought the rose, right?

[13:53] Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're kind of like that, though. I mean, yeah. Two second should be said, huh? God does not seek from our goods anything what useful, right? But glory, huh? My goodness, that is in making known of His what goodness, huh?

[14:25] Which also from His works He what seeks, huh? Now from this that we what worship Him, nothing adheres to Him, right, or gives gives itself to Him, but to us, right?

[14:46] So God doesn't get anything from us by our praising Him, but we get something for ourselves by praising Him, and therefore we merit something from God, not as if from our works something accrues to Him, right? But in so far as an account of His what glory, we do something for the manifestation of His goodness. He calls that glory there, right?

[15:25] Was Christ in his prayer there talk about the glory that he had before the foundation of the world, right? That's not something God from us. I don't think

[15:35] he's praying something about that with with Him. He wants that to be made known, right, or something, right, to us. The third objection. For, whoever, before someone merits something, constitute him a debtor of himself, right? For he is owed that someone be paid. Yeah,

[16:16] but God is a debtor of no one. Hence it is said, Romans eleven, who before gave to him, and must be what returned to him, right? Therefore, no one from God is able to merit anything, right?

[16:37] What To the third, it should be said that because our action does not have the ratio, right, of merit, except from the presupposition of the divine ordering, it does not follow that God is made simpliciter our debtor, but a debtor to Himself, right? Insofar as it is owed that His ordering be fulfilled.

[17:10] Now put that in your pipe and smoke it, huh? Somebody asked me once what this Christian merit was. and I if it sounds right. It sounded right to me at the time. It's kinda like God giving you an IOU.

[17:24] He makes himself our debtor. Yeah. he's more a debtor of himself in the sense of saying that his ordering should be fulfilled, right? Because he ordered this to glory, right?

[17:47] But against this is what is said in Jeremiah thirty-one. Merces est operi tuo, there is reward to your work, but a reward is said for merit; it's rendered for merit. Therefore, it seems that God can merit something from God.

[18:13] Answer: It should be said that merit and what rewards that verse refers to the same thing, huh? For that is said to be reward that is compensated, right? Recompensed to someone for the what as a return, I guess, retribution, work and labor, as it were, a certain what price of it, huh? Whence, just as to render a just price for the thing received from another is an act of justice, so also to recompense the reward, right?

[19:06] To pay back, I guess, huh? The reward of a work or labor is an act of what? Justice, huh? Now, justice is a certain equality, as is clear through the what? Philosopher, right? That means equality is justice, huh? Democratic thought.

[19:38] See all these crazy things are being induced because the minorities that practice these vices must be treated equally, right? It's just that's justice, right? And therefore, simpliciter, there is justice among those of whom there is simpliciter equality, huh? But of those of which there is not simpliciter qualitas, there is not simpliciter justitia. I don't know if the word simply carries the full sense of simpliciter in Thomas's text, right?

[20:26] But a certain mode of justice can be that is said to be what the paternal, just, right, or that of the what Lord, huh? As in the same book, the philosopher says, huh? An

[20:46] account to this: in those things of which there is the simply just, there is also the simply simply the ratio of merit or reward, huh?

[20:59] In those in which there is secundum quid justum and not simpliciter, in these there is also not simply the ratio of merit, but secundum quid. In so far as there is said there, the ratio of what justice, as if a son were to merit something from his what father, huh? Servant from his lord And the servant from his lord, huh? So, as a son, did you merit something from your father?

[21:33] I don't think so In some way but Give you a quarter, yeah? Vacuum the room there or something. Is that justice? Is that justice? He gives you the quarter? He said, kundum quid he said, Some bitchy there. Yeah. Well, if all he gave it was the quarter, but he gave life and the house and clothes and food and school and everything else.

[22:15] Cicero said that the son is always in debt to his father, right? Huh? So how can you merit something from your father if you're always in debt?

[22:29] I haven't paid him back yet. Right? You paid your father back? Well, I wonder if there's a way of there's a debt, and yet, in as far as the father-son relationship, there might be a way of putting the father in your debt in a certain way, and so there are these concurrent debts, these concurrent reciprocal obligations. And they would wash out in the end in favor of the father if you united them together.

[23:03] But I don't know if this way maintains a distinction between the various. We have these noble scenes in Shakespeare's history plays, right, where the son comes and rescues his father, you know, from being killed by the enemy, right? And then, in the sense that the father has received his life, right, or in the sense from the son, right. So, that's something, right? That's kind of unusual circumstance, right?

[23:24] Yeah. When you take care of your parents when they're old or something, right? So my sister was taking care of my mother, and of course your mother's always right, and you're always wrong. Of course, of course. And my sister was kind of complaining about that situation. And I said, "Well, you got to remember, she changed your diapers." And she said, "Been there, done that." She did it back when.

[23:54] I did it too. We say that you know parents change their children's diapers so that children will change their parents' diapers. Something like that. Use lost in the translation. Yeah. Well, what about a child being instrumental in the conversion and eternal salvation of their father? Yeah. Yeah.

[24:21] Yeah. Yeah. Now it is manifest that between God and man, there is the maxima inequalitatis For they're infinitely distant Yeah, they're distant. yeah, Infinity to him. Yeah.

[24:55] And the whole, which is the good of man, is from God, right? Whence is not possible, huh? For there to be justice of man towards God, according to absolute equality, huh? So you can't give back to your to God or even to your father the equal of what you received, right? In most cases, anyway. And God always can't give back, but according to a certain proportion, in so far as each acts according to his own what mode, huh?

[25:36] Now the mode and measure of human virtue is to man from what God, huh? And therefore the merit of man before God cannot be except according to the presupposition of the divine ordering, right?

[26:02] To wit, that if man what carries out or obtains from God through his operation is a worthy reward, that that God what fixed yeah

[26:22] gave him the power of acting right towards Adam. Just also as natural things achieve this through their own motions and operations, that to which God has what ordered them right.

[26:38] But there being a difference because the rational creature moves himself to acting through free will, whence his action has the ratio of merit that is not in other what creatures.

[26:53] So was Thomas answering to the question: Can man merit something from God? Not simply, right? But secundum quid, right? Okay, now you met that kind of distinction, right? It's used a lot, huh? You say, well,

[27:15] did I come to be when I walked in this room today? Not simpliciter, right? But I came to be in some way. I came to be in this room, right? Yeah. And when I sat down, did I come to be? Not simply. I came to be what sitting, right? Okay. So this is the division of being according to what figures of predication, right? Substance, quantity, and so on, right?

[27:53] Um, when I came to be, I know I'm five foot eight, five foot ten. I don't know. Ah, that I come to be. Or was I already before I came to be? My present height. Yes. See. That's the category of quantity, right? So the nine genera of accidents, right, are being what secundum quid, right? And my substantial being is being what simply, right? Will I cease to be when I leave this room?

[28:26] I hope not. I will cease to be in some sense, right? I'll cease to be in your company. I'll cease to be in this room, right? I'll cease to be sitting on this until I sit down the car train car. Um.

[28:45] Okay, now the same thing is true about acting ability, isn't it? Am I in my house now? I'm able to be there. Yeah. See, was that to be there? Not simply. It's to be their inability, yeah. So the student, you know, is able to learn, right? Does he know these things? Only ability. Yeah, yeah. That's one silly. Well, I should say silly one. Did you say? You know, it's it's not what you know, but you know where to find it.

[29:24] How to do a Google search, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's some truth in what he's saying, but I mean, but I mean, is that really, you know, to know simply? It's what you know that you know, right? It's not what you you know where to find. Yeah. It's one of the arguments used against memorization. Yeah, yeah,

[29:49] yeah. It's funny, you know. I mean, the modern philosophers they never distinguish, you know, between simply and secundum quidio you know Many simple distinctions. are there They're made, right? Yeah. So why doesn't why doesn't man merit something from God simply? He's not evil Yeah, and he doesn't have anything except what he's received from God, right? You know. So I used to use the example I used earlier there, you know, about the child, you know, having no money of his own, right?

[30:29] He's earned, and if I give him an allowance, right? There was a time which my brother Richard got allowance of ten cents a week. The oldest, my brother Marcus, has an allowance of five cents a week because he was the next born, and I got an allowance of two cents a week. We'd go down to the the corner drugstore, right? And they had a big glass thing there with candy there, and you could get something for a penny, you know.

[30:59] So two cents, you could go and spend your two cents down there, or a soda pop in those days cost five cents, right? You had to wait three weeks. Yeah, go three weeks, and you can have you have five cents, and you have enough for a candy. You could get a get a orange soda or grape soda, whatever you liked. At the one arm man used to have a little store wasn't very far away, and he had a cooler in the front there, you know, and he had the nickels saved up, you know.

[31:26] But if I saved up my two cents and I bought something for my mother or my father, then you know, he'd appreciate that, right? I'd probably be rewarded for it in some way, right? A little more love or something. You know a rise from two cents to five cents.

[31:48] It's funny, huh? Because it's funny that we observe a certain difference between the three boys, you know, and there was known as the ancient honorable rules, right? Of order, you know, hierarchy, right? But there's an ordering that God has made, right, of things, right? Huh? And that if you do this, then you get this, right? Huh? So you say, "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, right?

[32:14] And Thy Thy will be done, right? " There's an ordering there. Thy will be done, right? Huh? And Thy kingdom come, right? So God orders this to that, and there, if we freely do this, then we merit that, right? Huh? Strange, huh? Secundum quid huh I? Wonder if God has those thoughts.

[32:54] But maybe you would say though that simply though you owe this to God, right? Is doing God's will. My merit of heaven, or is it something I owe God?

[33:15] Yeah, but I would say simply, it's something I owe God is to do His will, right? And if God accepts my doing His will as meriting, right? That the dog out there, I think he likes the class. He likes to listen Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what we're doing in here, I guess. He hasn't got the slightest idea what we're doing here. There's no food. He can't find food.

[33:51] Yeah. That's because God has, has ordered, right? Doing His will as a way to get to heaven, right? To get to the kingdom, right? Huh?

[34:10] And so, in some way, if we're free to do that, right, then we merit heaven, right? No. But not simply. Not simply. Strange, huh? Okay, so

[34:35] look at the second article now. Okay, for the article here. The second one goes forward. Thus, it seems that someone without grace is able to merit eternal life. Wait up! Wait up! Wait up! Wait up! Wait up there! Wait up there!

[34:59] For that, God merits right from God to which he is ordered divinely, as has been said. But man, according to his very nature, is ordered to beatitude as to an end. Whence also he naturally desires to be what? Blessed, huh? Beatitude is the supreme good, right? The end of the rational creature, rational being. Therefore, man, through his own natural powers, without grace, can merit the beatitude which is eternal life.

[35:42] Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that God orders human nature to the end of eternal life, achieving that not by his own what power, but by the aid of grace, and in this way his act can be meritorious of what eternal life. What does Aristotle says? They always quote him. you know, that man's eye is to seeing God, like the eyes of the bat are to the light of day, as if it's too bright for him, right?

[36:15] So he's kind of knowing that that man, by his natural what knowledge, cannot what. He's kind of like blinded, trying to see God. We don't know what happened to Aristotle. There's some mercy taken upon him or not, but

[36:39] the happiness Aristotle talks about then is the one that man can make by what the discourse of reason and so on, which is something uh, less than knowing God as He is, right?

[36:56] Did uh, this is, uh, kind of a unrelated question, but did, uh, Aristotle was he known to have lived a life of the virtues that he so wonderfully wrote about? Was he a man of virtue himself? Well, he certainly set up a statue to Plato, saying the first man to show by both word and example that the virtuous life is a happy life. That's good to know.

[37:27] So he praised Plato for doing that, right? Can hardly be praising himself for doing that. Maybe he was saying, right? He admired Plato. You know, teacher Kasurik could say to me, you know, he knew I was listening to Mozart and so on. You know, do you find it helps you to control your emotions more? As he asked me. I said, oh yeah.

[37:59] The crazy stuff people listen to now, there's even music, you know, just just uh... There's some pieces of Mozart? You know, they have Mozart's own words where he says there are things in here that only you know connoisseur, you know, man can really appreciate, but they're written in such a way that everyone will will like them. You know, there's no reason why they can't like some of these things.

[38:24] You know, my little seven year old grandchild, I told you, you know, she heard Mozart's *Ave Verum Corpus*, and her mother asked her, "What do you think of this?" And she said, "It was heaven singing on earth." That's pretty good for a little six seven year old. What a difference from the contemporary art world, uh where it's art is really only for artists, because only they can really understand it, only they have profundity of intelligence and wisdom And I've talked to a number of people who are involved in the art world who have this attitude very strongly, and they will talk condescendingly to others, including myself, you know, implying you just couldn't possibly understand how profound this stuff is, when there's no goodness, truth or

[39:08] beauty at all, in what they're you know, exalting. I remember when I taught out at St Mary's College in California, right? And one time they had an exhibition of some modern art stuff, you know, and so they had to kind of spread it around the campus or around the academic building, right? Well, the the head of the physics department, he thought it was a lot of damn nonsense, which it was.

[39:31] So he looked around his lab and found some you know odd pieces of of stuff, you know, pieces of metal. So he put them together; it's a big jumble. And he went and and put it up and and explained it, you know, and went through the whole thing that nobody. If you hear about the Tate Museum, every year or so. It has a contest for the new up and coming artists.

[39:58] And so after this, all the exhibits have been put out and shown, and I guess the winner has been determined. They closed for the night. The janitor came in to clean things up, and he found this tray with a bunch of cigarette butts and a half-empty coffee cup and crumpled napkins and some food crumbs and stuff like that. He goes, how did this get here? So...

[40:24] The next morning, yeah, he found. out He was informed that he had just thrown out the prize first prize. Poor guy got fired, probably. but But just doing a job. I'm just doing my job. The artist wasn't angry, though. I gather because it was relatively easy to. redo But this is in first uh I'm sorry New Criterion Yeah very fine journal on arts and politics if you haven't come across it Yeah Very very fine very Catholic Yeah Friendly There's a story in Canada there, you know, where a guy just splashed the paint on the thing and sent it in won the first prize.

[41:00] you know, he says, "what the hell?" So he goes down there to the exhibition of the works, you know, and there's a young lady there in front of the painting, admiring it, you know. And so he walked up to her, he didn't tell her, of course, who he was, and he said, "Don't you think the artist is kind of pulling your leg, the public's leg, you know?"

[41:17] She turned him directly. The contrary, the man is pure genius. He splashed the thing, you know, paint on the thing and sent it in. Yeah, I saw. I actually saw this a long, long time ago. I actually saw there was some artist. His idea was to make a painting by splashing. Yeah. What he did was he got permission to go on the tarmac of an airport. Yeah.

[41:42] With a jet engine, Yeah. And he turned on the jet engine. only he had a canvas up, you know, strapped all kinds of and he just threw paint.

[41:52] And that was his work. Yeah. Wow. A while back there was an artist named Pierre Simeon who had an exhibit which was very highly reviewed by art critics. Yeah. But it turned out that it was Pierre Simeon was actually chimpanzee who was owned by a primatologist who had given the chimps some paints. Canvas or paper, and he splashed stuff on, and yet these art critics thought it was really great stuff.

[42:20] Yeah, a talented artist. I remember reading Aristotle's Poetics. You know, he's talking about Aristotle's talking about the more primitive, you know, statues and so the Greeks and things. And Aristotle said, "No one knew what they were unless they labeled them." You know, they never knew what the the thing was a statue of, right? Unless they labeled it, right? It shows you what what the emperor. You know that story about the emperor in his clothes, right?

[42:55] That's that's what it is, you know. So we're up to the second article here now. We're on the second. Okay. Moreover, the same work, the more it is less owed, right? The more it is what meritorious.

[43:19] But that is less owed, that good which comes about right from that which is what. Which is preceded by lesser benefits, right? Since therefore the one who has only natural goods has achieved. Or achieved or acquired lesser benefits from God, right? Than the one who has with natural things also gratuitous things, it seems that his works are before God more meritorious. Hey, Aristotle's got hope there, right, with that objection.

[43:55] And thus, the one who has grace can merit in some way eternal life, much more the one who does not have. Yeah. Now, to the second, it should be said that man without grace cannot have a work that is equal to the work that proceeds from grace. Because the more perfect is the source of the action, the more perfect is the action. The argument would follow, supposing the equality of the operation of both, right?

[44:39] That makes sense, doesn't it? Moreover, the third objection: the mercy and the liberality of God in infinitum exceed the mercy and liberality of human liberality. Thomas is always quoting, was it Avicenna, right? That God alone is liberal, right? Because He's gives, getting nothing in return, right? Gets nothing out of what He He gives us, right? He's really liberal.

[45:15] But one man is able to merit before another, even if he what? Grace. Yeah. Before he's had. Therefore, it seems more that a man can, without grace, possess eternal life.

[45:36] He can merit from God, right? Yeah, eternal life from God. Okay. To third, it should be said that as regards the first argument induced, in a

[45:56] dissimilar way, it has itself in God and man. For man has every power of doing good from God, right? Not from another man. And therefore, from God, a man is not able to merit something except to what is in fact the gift of God, right? Which the apostle significantly expresses: "Who before gives to him, who before gives to him, and it must be what returned to him."

[46:27] But for man, one is able to merit something before one is accepted from him, but to that which he has received from God. But as regards the second argument, is taken from the what? Sin. Yeah. And similar about man and God. For because man is not able to merit from another whom he offended before, unless he be what? Satisfying. Yeah. Sure, I understand that.

[47:07] But against this is what the apostle says in Romans six, verse twenty-three: "By the grace of God, eternal life." Romans six twenty-three. Answer: It should be said that of man without grace, there can be considered a twofold what status. This has been said above. The one of integral nature, this is before the fall, as it was in Adam before sin. Another of corrupt nature. Just as in us, before the what, Preparation of grace.

[47:49] If therefore we speak of man as regards the first state. Thus, by one reason one is not able to merit without grace eternal life, through purely natural things, because what, the merit of man depends upon the. preordering that's divine.

[48:14] But the act of anything is not ordered divinely to something, exceeding the proportion of the power, which is the source of the act. For this is from the institution divine providence that nothing acts beyond its own what power. But eternal life is a certain good, exceeding the proportion of created nature.

[48:42] Because it also exceeds even the knowledge and his what desire. According to that of one, Corinthians two nine, neither has eye seen, nor ear heard, nor has it ascended in the. heart of man. That's interesting. You know, explain that because, the eye and the ear he acts the knowledge right, but not in the heart he even acts the desire right.

[49:12] So there are a style of desire eternal life right. Wasn't the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. He desired the happiness that was possible for man by natural powers right.

[49:34] And therefore, hence it is that no created nature, is a sufficient beginning of an act meritorious of eternal life, unless there be added above this a supernatural gift, which is called grace.

[49:54] If, however, we speak about man existing under sin, there is added with this a second reason right, on account of the impediment of what, sin. For since sin is a certain offense against God, excluding one from eternal life, as is clear from the things said above, nothing in the state of sin existing is able to merit eternal life, unless it be first reconciled to God right, the sin, dismissed, which comes about through grace.

[50:33] For to the sinner is not old life but death. According to that of Romans six, that the wages, I guess, stipendia. We had the word. We used the right English there. Stipend. What's a stipend? Is that given for a lecture? Stipend. I mean, they give a. It's kind of.

[50:53] Yeah, stipend. Yeah. Yeah. We also use the word stipend. We used to do it. Yeah, the world. Stipend. But anyway, the stipend or the wages of sin, I guess. I don't use the term wages. I don't know. The wages of sin is death.

[51:19] A fixed regular sum paid as a salary or allowance. Yeah. Because as it was, stipends means wages. Well, it is, but it's kind of a fixed thing. A bunch of hundred, five, or ten dollars. It's kind of, and it's actually fixed by the United Bishops Conference per country. So it's kind of an expected customary offering.

[51:52] Well, maybe stop here.