Scotus Academicus, Tomus secundus: De Deo Intelligente et Volente

Note 1. According to the etymology of the name, mercy signifies the same as a miserable heart, so that someone is called merciful as one having a miserable heart; because he is affected by another's misery with sadness, as if it were his own misery, as the Doctor observes in 4. d. 46. q. 2. n. 2. With him agree the holy Fathers and Philosophers. First of all, indeed, St. Augustine lib. 9. De Civit. Dei, cap. 5: Mercy, he says, is compassion for another's misery in our heart, by which we are certainly compelled to help if we can: whence St. John Damascene in lib. 2. De Fide cap. 4. says: Mercy is sadness at another's evils. The Philosophers consent to these: Aristotle indeed in 2. Rhetoric. cap. 2. says: that mercy is a certain pain arising from an apparent corruptive evil, and bringing pain upon one who does not deserve to suffer, which he thought that he himself, or one of his own, could also suffer, and in such a way that it seems near: and Cicero in 4. Tusculanarum quaestionum: Mercy is distress from sadness at another suffering injury: finally Seneca in lib. 1. De Clementia says: Mercy is distress at the sight of another's miseries. But all these descriptions of mercy are made only according to the effect which that affection toward one's neighbor generates in us from the consideration of our own infirmity, so that it can be doubtful to no one that mercy is not found formally in God, from whom all misery and infirmity are far removed. Therefore

Note 2. From the same Doctor in the same place, mercy, insofar as it is found in us, imports, as it were, two things: one indeed formally, the other materially. For formally it denotes an act or affection of the will by which one desires and intends to relieve another's misery; which affection, if it is efficacious and powerful, de facto removes and drives out the misery from the subject in which it is or can be. Materially, however, it signifies a certain movement of the sensitive appetite by which someone grieves over another's evil and condoles and sympathizes with him through affection: or as the Doctor puts it: Mercy in us is a habit, or however it may be called, a form, by which we do not will another's misery; so that it first inclines to the act of not willing misery in another, and this either as future, and then it preserves him from it if it can; or as present, and then it relieves him from misery if it can; and consequently, after the operation, it disposes to the passion, namely to displeasure at imminent or present misery.

Note 3. From the same, n. 3: just as a twofold volition is distinguished in God, namely the Antecedent and the Consequent, so a twofold nolition can be distinguished in Him with respect to another's misery: and just as He always has an antecedent will with respect to the evil of a creature to be prevented or removed, according to that saying of the Apostle 1. ad Tim. He wills all men to be saved: but just as He does not always have a consequent will with respect to good, so neither a consequent nolition with respect to imminent evil, totally or partially. If in the first way, it is called mercy freeing, by which He excludes every evil, whether imminent or already present; in the second way it is called mercy sparing, or mitigating, which indeed does not exclude the whole evil, but some part of the evil owed to him according to his merits. In both ways, however, mercy is in God, because He either helps some by preventing all imminent misery or relieving present misery; but to others by remitting the misery owed. These things having been premised, let it be:

First conclusion. — Mercy is in God formally, not only as regards the effect; but also as regards the affection of relieving another's misery.

This is common among the Theologians, and the Doctor defends and explains it in the cited place, where, after he had said that mercy, insofar as it inclines to the passion or compassion of another's misery and makes a miserable heart from affection toward another, is not in God, he adds: But as regards that operation of not willing misery, whether imminent or present, mercy is properly in God. This is proved with respect to imminent misery, because just as no good happens unless God wills it, so nothing is prevented from happening unless God does not will it. Many miseries, however, that are possible to befall someone are prevented from happening: therefore God has a nolition with respect to them. Similarly with respect to present misery, because no misery is removed unless God does not will it to be present, but many are frequently removed: therefore, etc. Sacred Scripture indicates and confirms this same truth in so many oracles that there is scarcely a page in which that divine mercy is not most brilliantly commended. And since it cannot be sufficiently expressed, inasmuch as it surpasses every thought and speech and includes every affection of pitying, therefore it expresses it through a certain exuberance, especially Exod. 34. Ruler, O Lord, God merciful and clement, patient and of much compassion and true, who keepest mercy unto thousands, who takest away iniquity and wickedness and sins: And Psalm 85. Thou, O Lord God, art compassionate and merciful, patient, and of much mercy. And Psalm 32.¹ The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord. And rightly indeed, says Augustine:

for on earth man's misery abounds, the Lord's mercy superabounds; man's misery fills the earth and the Lord's mercy fills the earth. But if the earth is full of divine mercy, will heaven be empty of it, where there is no misery? Far from it, he elegantly adds, all things need the Lord, both the miserable and the happy; without Him the miserable are not lifted up, without Him the happy one is not governed: therefore, lest perchance you ask about the heavens when you hear that the earth is full of the mercy of the Lord; hear that even the heavens need the Lord: by the word of the Lord the heavens were established; for they were not a firmament for themselves from themselves, nor did the heavens themselves provide firmness proper to themselves: by the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the spirit of His mouth all their power. They had nothing from themselves, but as a supplement they received it from the Lord.

St. Thomas clearly declares this truth in the first part, art. 3., where, after he had observed that the communication of perfections to created things arises from divine Goodness, Justice, Liberality and Mercy according to a different notion, he adds:

the communication of perfections absolutely communicated belongs to goodness, but insofar as perfections are given by God to things according to their proportion, it belongs to justice: insofar, however, as He does not bestow perfections on things for His own utility, but only for His own goodness, it belongs to liberality: insofar, moreover, as the perfections given to things by God expel every defect, they belong to mercy.

All these things are to be understood not only of mercy as regards the Effect and the relief of eternal misery, but also as regards the Affection by which the divine will is moved to relieve another's misery; for since that relief of misery is an effect of the divine will, it necessarily follows its affection; and therefore if mercy is attributed to God according to the effect, it must also be attributed according to the affection, not indeed of passion or of the sensitive appetite, but of the will and charity: whence St. Augustine lib. 2. ad Simplicianum, on Mercy: If you take away compassion, so that a tranquil goodness of helping and of freeing from misery remains, some kind of knowledge of divine Mercy is intimated: and lib. 1. contra Adversarium legis: God, he says, is zealous without love, is angry without disturbance, and has mercy without any grief: therefore both parts of the Conclusion remain sufficiently proved, namely that mercy is found in God according to the effect and according to the affection.

Second conclusion. — A twofold divine mercy can be distinguished, one general, the other special, not indeed according to itself, but by reason of the external work and the created effect.

The former is that by which from the beginning each rational nature, namely the Angelic and the human, was destined for supernatural goods and the blessed state through designed and supplied congruent means. For since, says Lessius in lib. 12. De perfectionibus divinis cap. 2., rational nature per se and left to itself is subject to many defects, imperfections and, as it were, miseries: the immense goodness of God, when it had determined to create it from nothing and to adorn it with all the gifts owed to nature; and saw it still exposed to so many defects and separated from the vision of Himself by so great an interval: moved by mercy, it determined to raise and exalt it to the supernatural order and to the communion of His eternal goods, by which all those defects would be removed. Concerning this mercy the Royal Bard says in Psalm 144. The Lord is sweet to all, and His mercies are over all His works, but especially over rational creatures.

The particular is that by which God by a special benefit relieves the misery of some creature, leaving others in the same misery: thus He willed to repair the human race rather than the Angelic choir, which had likewise fallen, chiefly for three reasons, which Lessius reports in cap. 3. and weighs out from the holy Fathers. The first: because man fell into guilt by the deception of a higher nature; the Angel by his own will. And although the higher ones perhaps led the lower ones astray, nevertheless the latter saw their other companions resisting the pestilential persuasion and ought to have been strengthened by their example. The second: because the human race, except the two first men, fell by another's will without its own consent: the Angels, however, sinned by their own judgment, their own choice and the election of their own will. The third: because on account of their most perfect knowledge and absolute command of soul, their sin was incomparably graver: just as for the same reason their good works are most meritorious. Man's knowledge is much more obscure, and his affection, overgrown with passions, far weaker. Whence a long road and a long time of meriting was appointed for man, but a very short one for the Angel.

Moreover, a threefold mercy, or work of mercy, can be established. The first, by which God brought all things, especially those endowed with reason, forth into light from nothing, in which from eternity they had lain hidden as if buried: whence saint Bernard in Sermon 1. on the Salve Regina says: The primordial mercy of God is the very cause of all things and the most causal of causes. The second is that by which He ordered rational nature to the supernatural state through supernatural means: the third finally is that by which He determined to repair nature fallen from the supernatural state, both into sin, and into its natural miseries, and into eternal death, and to shore it up with more efficacious supernatural aids than before: for where sin abounded, grace superabounded there. The first indeed is great and admirable; for infinitely better is the essence with which creatures were gifted than the nothing from which they emerged. But the second is far more excellent, for grace is more excellent than nature, and that divine state than the natural condition. But the third surpasses all, and more designates the infinite power and virtue of God: whence that oracle of the Sage, Thou hast mercy on all, because Thou canst do all things, and that of Paul to the Romans 9: God, willing to show His power, endured with much patience the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. With these the words of the Church agree: God, who dost manifest Thine omnipotence chiefly by sparing and having mercy. Which saint Thomas thus luculently weighs out in the first part, quaest. 25. art. 3.

The omnipotence of God is shown chiefly in sparing and having mercy; because by this it is shown that God has supreme power, in that He freely remits sins, for it is not his who is bound by the law of a superior to freely pardon sins; or because by sparing men and having mercy He leads them to the participation of the infinite good, which is the ultimate effect of divine power: or because the effect of divine mercy is the foundation of all divine works; for nothing is owed to anyone, except on account of that which is given to him by God and not owed, etc.

From these things it is clear that the attribute of mercy belongs indeed to the divine will, yet presupposes omnipotence, in which it is founded and, as it were, rooted; because that divine mercy is an attribute not only affective, by which God wills to come to the aid of another's misery, but also effective, by which de facto He relieves all the miseries and defects of rational creatures.

I pass over the other considerations of divine Mercy, as well as of the other excellences of the divine will, inasmuch as they seem moral rather than Scholastic.