ON WORKS

Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905- 1987)



Faith is a movement of the entire person away from himself,

through the gift of grace; thereby he lays hold of the mercy of

God given to him in Christ-in the form of the forgiveness of

sins, justification and sanctification. In this movement away

from himself man has done all that he, through grace, can do; he

has done all that God requires of him. Since his intention is to

leave himself, without reservation, and hand himself over entirely,

this movement implicitly' contains all the "works" he will

eventually do. They are not some second entity beside faith; if

they are performed in a Christian spirit, they are only forms in

which faith expresses itself. .

As an •act 'of the whole person, faith travels in a direction away

from itself and toward God. That is why reflection on itself and

any attempt to make itself secure are foreign to it. The gospel

may promise a "reward in Heaven" to a faith that is rightly lived

out, but faith itself is very far from calculating any "merit" that

may bring about such a reward. "

The word "merit" insofar as it concerns some value conferring

a right to something, is theologically an unhappy term that would

be better dropped. (In tradition it very often has a quite different

sense, namely, "being found worthy" by God: tu quae meruisti

portare ... >.We need have no qualms about dropping the word,

for there is a biblical word ready to replace it: fruitfulness. God

responds. to Abraham's faith in this way: "I will make. you

exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you" (Gen 17:6).

The Lord is always using the word in his parables. In John it is

the grain of wheat, which dies in the earth, that brings forth much

fruit. The metaphor of the vine is even clearer. Apart from Jesus

a man can do "nothing", but if he abides in-him he brings forth

"much" fruit. If he fails to do this, he is removed; if he succeeds,

he is "cleansed", cut back in order to produce even more fruit.

Clearly, this does not mean externally quantifiable results. As far

as the Kingdom of God is concerned, Mary, sitting at the feet of

Jesus, is more fruitful than the busy Martha. When Mary anoints

the Lord's feet at the meal in Bethany and Judas protests at this

"waste" and thinks how much money the ointment would have

yielded, he is rebuked: the fruitfulness of this prodigal gesture

that takes no account of "merit" is far more important to Jesus

than some work of charity. .

In the Fullness of Faith