Justice: equality or merit?
The idea of ‘merit’ is tied in closely with a number of other ideas, including ‘justice’ and ‘deserve’. And all these ideas are tied in with the notion of community.
Thus, a man living alone on an island, cut off from the wider world, would have no use for any of those notions. They would describe nothing in his solitary experience.
But introduce even one other person and there is now a community, and these notions come into play. Justice, for example, must govern the relationship.
As a community grows the notions become more important but also more complex. In particular, the notion of a common or shared good of the community becomes a central concern.
In sharing out the rewards, for example, we have to decide what each person has contributed to the common good and what he or she has merited in return.
A very odd thing about society today is that people live in community but they try to pretend, as far as possible, that they are actually living solitary lives, responsible to and for no one else.
As a result of this weird ideology, ‘inequality’ is seen as somehow unjust, something that should be eradicated, and the government appoints a Minister for Equality to eliminate it.
Or, again, we think that every child who takes part in a race should receive a medal. All must be treated equally.
Even the notion of “equal pay for equal work” carefully avoids asking how “equal work” should be measured - by time, or results, or expended energy?
This individualistic ideology has also affected Catholic spirituality, with central teachings, such as merit and sacrifice and divine judgment, played down by preachers and theologians.
But how can ‘merit’ have any part in Catholic spirituality, given the nature of our relationship with God? How could we merit, deserve, be entitled in justice to anything from God when our very existence depends on him?
This is possible only within the mercy of God, within the unique kind of community that God has established with us.
In other words, God’s mercy comes first, but within that mercy God has established a true order of justice by which we are enabled and called to act so as to merit salvation.
A key part of this mercy is that God gives us intelligence and free will by which we can recognise the purpose of our lives and guide our actions towards that purpose.
It is part of God’s mercy that he gives us an essential role to play in our own salvation. That he structures salvation, so to speak, so that only by our own action, assisted by God’s grace, do we come to eternal joy.
Our cooperation with God, then, is essential in our salvation; it is through this cooperation with divine mercy that we ‘merit’ eternal life.
As the Catechism, quoting St Augustine, says: “God created us without us: but he did not will to save us without us” (no. 1847).
Thus, a man living alone on an island, cut off from the wider world, would have no use for any of those notions. They would describe nothing in his solitary experience.
But introduce even one other person and there is now a community, and these notions come into play. Justice, for example, must govern the relationship.
As a community grows the notions become more important but also more complex. In particular, the notion of a common or shared good of the community becomes a central concern.
In sharing out the rewards, for example, we have to decide what each person has contributed to the common good and what he or she has merited in return.
A very odd thing about society today is that people live in community but they try to pretend, as far as possible, that they are actually living solitary lives, responsible to and for no one else.
As a result of this weird ideology, ‘inequality’ is seen as somehow unjust, something that should be eradicated, and the government appoints a Minister for Equality to eliminate it.
Or, again, we think that every child who takes part in a race should receive a medal. All must be treated equally.
Even the notion of “equal pay for equal work” carefully avoids asking how “equal work” should be measured - by time, or results, or expended energy?
This individualistic ideology has also affected Catholic spirituality, with central teachings, such as merit and sacrifice and divine judgment, played down by preachers and theologians.
But how can ‘merit’ have any part in Catholic spirituality, given the nature of our relationship with God? How could we merit, deserve, be entitled in justice to anything from God when our very existence depends on him?
This is possible only within the mercy of God, within the unique kind of community that God has established with us.
In other words, God’s mercy comes first, but within that mercy God has established a true order of justice by which we are enabled and called to act so as to merit salvation.
A key part of this mercy is that God gives us intelligence and free will by which we can recognise the purpose of our lives and guide our actions towards that purpose.
It is part of God’s mercy that he gives us an essential role to play in our own salvation. That he structures salvation, so to speak, so that only by our own action, assisted by God’s grace, do we come to eternal joy.
Our cooperation with God, then, is essential in our salvation; it is through this cooperation with divine mercy that we ‘merit’ eternal life.
As the Catechism, quoting St Augustine, says: “God created us without us: but he did not will to save us without us” (no. 1847).
