Suarez and his school contend that there is such a perfectly balanced equality between merit and reward that God is obliged in strict justice (_ex obligatione iustitiae_), prior to and apart from any formal act of acceptance or promise on His part, to reward good works by the beatific vision. This view is scarcely tenable because there is no common basis on which to construe a relation of strict justice between the Creator and His creatures,(1311) and moreover St. Paul expressly teaches that “The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come.”(1312)
Hence we prefer to hold with Lessius,(1313) Vasquez,(1314) and De Lugo(1315) that the _condignitas_ or equality existing between merit and reward, owes its origin both to the intrinsic value of the good work itself and to the free acceptance and gratuitous promise of God. This solution duly respects the intrinsic value of merit _in actu primo_, without derogating from the sublime dignity of God, who rewards good works not because He is obliged to do so by the merits of a mere creature, but solely because He is bound by His own truthfulness and fidelity. Thus God’s justice towards His creatures is placed upon a free basis, and there is no violation of justice (_iniuria_) on His part. “From the fact that our actions have no merit except on the supposition that God so ordained,” says St. Thomas, “it does not follow that God is simply our debtor; He is His own debtor, _i.e._ He owes it to Himself to see that His commands are obeyed.”(1316) This teaching can be proved from Sacred Scripture. Cfr. James I, 12: “He shall receive the crown of life, which God hath promised to them that love him.”(1317) It is reechoed by St. Augustine: “God is made our debtor, not by receiving anything from us, but because it pleased Him to promise us something. For it is in a different sense that we say to a man: You are indebted to me because I have given you something, and: You owe this to me because you have promised it. To God we never say: Give back to me because I have given to Thee. What have we given to God, since it is from Him that we have received whatever we are and whatever good we possess? We have therefore given Him nothing.... In this manner, therefore, may we demand of God, by saying: Give me what Thou hast promised, because we have done what Thou didst command, and it is Thyself that hast done it because Thou hast aided our labors.”(1318) The Tridentine Council seems to endorse this view when it says: “Life eternal is to be proposed to those ... hoping in God ... as a reward which is, according to the promise of God Himself, to be faithfully rendered to their good works and merits.”(1319)