Whether Christ could merit in the first instant of His conception?

❌ Objection 1 : It would seem that Christ could not merit in the first instant of His conception. For the free-will bears the same relation to merit as to demerit. But the devil could not sin in the first instant of his creation, as was shown in the FP, Question [63], Article [5]. Therefore neither could Christ's soul merit in the first instant of its creation---that is, in the first instant of Christ's conception.

❌ Objection 2 : Further, that which man has in the first instant of his conception seems to be natural to him: for it is in this that his natural generation is terminated. But we do not merit by what is natural to us, as is clear from what has been said in the FS, Question [109], Article [5]; FS, Question [114], Article [2]. Therefore it seems that the use of free-will, which Christ as man had in the first instant of His conception, was not meritorious.

❌ Objection 3 : Further, that which a man has once merited he makes, in a way, his own: consequently it seems that he cannot merit the same thing again: for no one merits what is already his. If, therefore, Christ merited in the first instant of His conception, it follows that afterwards He merited nothing. But this is evidently untrue. Therefore Christ did not merit in the first instant of His conception.