I was, once again, going through Davenant's Treatise on Justification and came across the following section in chapter LXIV that I wanted to create a short post on as it aligns perfectly with my previous comments on merit here and here. Now, I want to preface this by saying that I am not a fan of the section immediately preceeding this one in which Davenant treats condign merit. His treatment there proves too much and would do away with the Scotist conception of merit whereby a right in justice to a reward may be established extrinsically by covenant. There, Davenant's insistence on defining merit as intrinsic proportion between work and reward oddly enough seems to assume the Thomist view of merit, which in my judgment, end in incoherency, and I will address a similar position in the future when I get around to my last review of Perkins. Nevertheless, it is this subsequent chapter when Davenant takes up "the opinion of Suarez, Bellarmine, and others, who think that God is under obligation from his promise to grant the reward of eternal life, and that as a debt to justice properly so called," where he makes a very important point that is crucial to my division of merit.
To set the stage, Davenant is here considering the position of those papists who "acknowledging that the works of the godly are not in themselves proportionate or equal to claim the reward of glory, maintain, nevertheless, that a proise or agreement intervening, they do under benefit of that promise, become equivalent and properly worthy of recieving the promised reward." In other words, the thought is that: if our good works are promised the reward of eternal life, they thereby become proportioned to that reward and claim it through a right in justice. There is a debt in justice that is created just by virtue of the promise itself (in other words, they are claiming, as those who have already read my previous posts will know, that good works are condignly meritorious of eternal life). Again, those who have read my post on merit will already know how to respond to this, but let us see what Davenant himself has to say:
Admitting that a promise has been made on the part of God, and that it has been fulfilled on the part of man, we prove, notwithstanding, that there is no principle of justice binding God to its fulfilment. For the notion of justice presupposes these two things: a debt on the part of one who is under obligation to pay it, and an equality in the thing which is given or paid, to that which has been received in return. In neither case is there any ground for a claim of justice, either from the works performed, or, from the recompence of rewards which subsists between God promising and man performing. For the debt which is supposed to exist on the part of God, is the consequence of mere congruency or faithfulness, and furnishes, therefore, no sufficient ground for the operation of justice, which ought to rest upon a strict and legal debt. The work, moreover, which has been performed on the part of man, (as was before proved, and need not now be brought forward again) has not any intrinsic equality to the promised reward. Even, therefore, after the promise has been given, and the work has been accomplished, the reward is to be expected, not from the justice, but from the veracity of God.
Davenant's answer here is exactly correct. The "debt" which people often think to be created by God's promise to reward our works with eternal life only establishes the existence of congruent merit. The argument that wheresoever there is a promise of reward, there is therefore a debt of justice is fallacious and if true would completely eliminate the category of infallible congruent merit, as then all merit would be condign since all merit would establish a debt of justice.
Davenant goes on to make a point which I myself have made before on many occasions:
3.—That the promise of God does not involve any obligation on the ground of justice, can be shewn from the nature of the promise formally considered. For a promise, as a promise, is nothing more than some law or regulation which the person who makes it imposes upon himself; consequently, its obligations reach no farther, either in degree or manner, than the individual intended to bind himself thereby. I ask, then, when God promises life eternal to believers, whose object it is to live piously, in what way, and how far he intends by this his promise to bind himself to us? Doubtless, as a father who promises some reward to his dear boy if he applies himself to learning, and conducts himself properly; or, as a kind master, who promises his servant a reward to which he has no claim, if he is careful to discharge with alacrity the due and necessary duties of his situation. But neither of these parties intended to bind himself, by virtue of his promise, to do more than the laws of fidelity or truth imposed on him; neither of these intended to transfer to his own son or servant the power of making a claim on his justice for the reward promised. Just, therefore, as the son or the servant cannot summon his father or his master into court, if he should not abide by his promise, but can only charge him with a want of constancy or faithfulness; so neither could we accuse God of injustice, properly so called, if, after a course of pious toil, he should refuse to make a recompence of eternal glory to us; but only of a violation of his faithfulness. The promises of God, then, do not involve any claims on justice, properly speaking; but place him under obligation to observe that just dealing which fidelity calls for; and this is termed justice improperly, because it is & virtue which bears reference to others, and added to justice, as is to be inferred from what Aquinas says, 2. 2. quast. 80. art 1.
A promise of reward upon condition of works performed does not formally say anything about the type of merit involved (condign or congruent) and its relation to debt/justice. All that a promise formally denotes is the infallibility of the reward upon the performance of those conditions. We have seen this point made before by David Hollatz. We can speak of a "debt of faithfulness" inasmuch as one ought to be true to one's promises, but this says nothing about the justice of the reward itself. A promise may indeed denote a debt of justice (as it does in the case of the merit of Christ and Adam for instance), but it need not since "a promise, as a promise, is nothing more than some law or regulation which the person who makes it imposes upon himself; consequently, its obligations reach no farther, either in degree or manner, than the individual intended to bind himself thereby," and thus, as I have repeatedly said, whether or not a reward is condign or congruent depends entirely upon the will of the constituter. Thus it is said by the Reformed that God will render to us according to our works, albeit not based upon our works, and by the Roman Catholics it is said that congruent merit, although there is no injustice in it, yet it still outside of justice so to speak and not rewarded in justice. Davenant's position is clear here: heavenly rewards are promised to our works, not as condign merit (that is to say, not as that which earns a right/title/debt of justice), but as congruent merit in which there is nevertheless an infallible connection between the work and the reward. In other words, Davenant holds to infallible congruent merit, exactly as I have outlined before.
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