Hard work being meritocratic hinges on the assumption that humans have some sort of "superseding" agency, but it's far more tenable that we're just the confluence of experiences and genetics. This does come with the implication that no one is culpable for their actions, although that is not to say that crimes don't require disincentives (if only out of pragmatic policy rather than moral). In much the same vein for practical purposes we have to push ourselves as though we are in direct control, even though that very action exists within our delimited available actions (kind of similar to optimism is a necessary overcorrection). I remember thinking about this as a kid, although naturally my wording here is not how I would have put it then: why did Jesus's soul get to be morally pure while humans' weren't? What basis was that perfect morality gifted on? Moral actions seem like the natural means of making that sort of distinction, but the nature of the soul is the origin of those actions in the first place. Was he concieved just that purely? Then it was not by means of his own that it was achieved.. etc