One more contrast between the soils of spiritual formation.
Historically, the practices of spiritual formation grew within a Catholic worldview that espoused a theology of merit. Now, that word “merit” is going to sound strange and very suspicious to Protestants. But merit is an important notion within Catholicism. Simply put, what we do, in cooperation with God’s grace, is both recognized and rewarded by God.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life” (CCC 2010). Now, to be clear, and this is very important, the Catechism is keen to describe how our meritorious acts are rooted in and flow from grace: “The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace” (CCC 2008). Recall from earlier in this series, we’re within a synergistic context where human effort flows from and cooperates with God’s grace. Thus, the Catechism points out, “the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful” (CCC 2008). Grace does not erase human agency and effort. Grace empowers our agency and effort. “The merits of our good works are gifts of the divine goodness” (CCC 2009).
A theological vision of merit has biblical roots. The New Testament often speaks of crowns, inheritances, and treasures in heaven. Most significantly for our purposes, in 1 Corinthians 3:13-15 Paul describes the Day when each person’s work will be tested by fire. Some work will be burned away, while other work will endure. And those whose work survives, Paul says, “will receive a reward.”
Notice the spiritual formation soil this creates. Fasting, prayer, giving alms, the works of mercy, and self-denial are practices are acts of obedience and love that God chooses to both recognize and reward.
Protestantism, by contrast, came to reject a theology of merit in favor of “imputed righteousness.” That is to say, Christ’s righteousness is credited to us through faith and nothing we do is “meritorious.” Consequently, Protestantism has been suspicious of language regarding eschatological merit and reward.
For the purposes of this series, the issue here isn’t theological, about who is right or wrong about merit. My concern is the historical soil where spiritual formation practices originated and the soil where we’re attempting a transplant. The contrast I’m highlighting in this post concerns how many of the practices Protestants are attempting to recover grew within a theological world where merit was assumed, beliefs that God rewards our good deeds. Consequently, when these practices are transplanted into Protestant soil there can be a subtle motivational shift. How so? Well, since merit is a suspect category, the disciplines must justify themselves as technologies of transformation rather than as something intrinsically pleasing to God. When this happens, spiritual practices can become vulnerable to self-help culture, morphing into tools of self-optimization. Simply put, the practices come to be justified through their effects upon us rather than through their virtue and value before God. A simple and straightforward motivation for engaging in spiritual formation—obedience and a desire to please God—becomes lost.
To be sure, this isn’t a huge issue. And spiritual practices are primarily aimed at transformation rather than collecting “stars in our crown.” But noticing the differences in the spiritual formation soil, even if slight, can help us understand why some practices struggle with transplant shock.
Okay, we’ve worked through many overlapping contrasts in this series. In a final post, I want to sum up and draw out the implications for what all this means for spiritual formation in Protestant spaces.
