Scotus Academicus, Tomus quartus: De Angelis

It must be known at the outset, that there are especially two opinions among Authors concerning the resolution of the first part of this Question. The first was that of Origen, reported by St. Thomas in 1. par. qu. 64. art. 2, asserting that every created will, both of the blessed and of the damned, is flexible toward good or evil; excepting however the will of Christ's soul.

The second is that of all Catholic Doctors affirming that the wills of demons and of the damned are so hardened in evil that they can in no way repent. But they do not all put forward the same cause of this obstinacy; indeed, in assigning it they split into various opinions. First, then, St. Thomas in 1. p. quaest. 64. art. 2., inquiring into the cause of the obstinacy of the demons, after saying that the apprehensive power is proportioned to the appetitive power, with this difference: that the sensitive appetite is for a particular good, while the will is for a universal good — just as also the apprehensive sense is of singulars, but the intellect of universals — adds:

Now the apprehension of an angel differs from the apprehension of a man. For an angel apprehends immovably by his intellect, just as we immovably apprehend first principles, which are the object of intellect; but man apprehends movably by reason, discoursing from one thing to another, having a way of proceeding to either of two opposites. Hence too the will of man adheres to something movably, as being able even to depart from that adherence and adhere to the contrary: whereas the will of an angel adheres fixedly and immovably. Therefore if it be considered before adherence, it can freely adhere both to this and to its opposite, namely in those things which it does not will naturally. But after it has already adhered, it adheres immovably; and hence it is said that man's free will is flexible toward the opposite both before and after election, while the angel's free will is flexible toward either opposite before election, but not after. Thus therefore the good angels, ever adhering to justice, are confirmed in it: but the wicked are obstinate in sin.

— He says the same in 2. dist. 7. quaest. 1. art. 2., where, rejecting five arguments concerning this obstinacy of the wicked angels:

it must be said, he says, that just as it is impossible for a will adhering to the right end to proceed to a work of sin, so conversely it is impossible for any upright work to proceed from a will adhering inseparably to a perverse end... Hence just as men after death are confirmed in good or in evil, so also angels after conversion or aversion.

— The Angelic Doctor therefore holds that the cause of the obstinacy of the demons must be placed in this: that their will immovably adheres to a perverse end, namely that complacency in their own gifts and natural excellences, to the prejudice of the divine Majesty, to whom alone they ought to have adhered, grows fast upon them immovably. — Not far from this opinion is Henry of Ghent, quodlibet 8. qu. 11., teaching that an angel is for this reason immutable from the act he once elicited, because a separate will so deeply immerses itself in its object that it cannot recoil from it.

Secondly, Aureolus asserts that this obstinacy arises from a certain vicious habit which God produces in the will of the damned as punishment for their offenses, and that by means of it they are inclined to evil in such a way that they are utterly unable to perform any good work.

Thirdly, there are those who teach with Marsilius in 2. qu. 5. art. 3. that the cause of the obstinacy of the damned in evil is drawn from this: that God does not will to concur with them for eliciting any good work.

Fourthly, Ocham in 2. dist. 29. contends that this obstinacy arises from this: that some act is admitted in a damned angel which is not in his power; whence he infers that God totally and immediately causes some act in the will of the wicked angel.

Finally, last of all, there is the opinion of the Subtle Doctor, teaching that the cause of the obstinacy of the demons and other damned is to be drawn from nothing else than from the denial of divine aid for repenting, and from the perverse will of the damned, from which follows a certain depraved affection of the will by which each of the damned immovably adheres to the perverse end into which they fell in the final state of the way. That this opinion may become clearer

Note 1. The state of Wayfarers, of Comprehensors, and of the Damned is far different. The state of Wayfarers is that general and universal law of God by which he decreed to concur with the will for the act of penance and of disposition to sanctifying grace, as well as for its increase, whenever man should wish to repent and elicit some good work, according to that of Ezekiel 18. I desire not the death of the sinner, etc. The state of Comprehensors is the divine law by which God decreed so to preserve those Comprehensors that they can neither decline from him nor ever cease from a good work, according to that saying of Christ the Lord, John 10. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no man shall pluck them out of my hand. Finally, the state of the Damned is that universal law of God itself by which he decreed that he will in no way concur with the damned for any meritorious act, nor for disposition to justifying grace, on account of their final demerits, according to that of Ecclesiasticus 11. If a tree fall to the south, or to the north, in what place soever it shall fall, there shall it be. That is, as the Doctor explains, in whatever perverse love of a rational creature it stood at the end of the way, it will remain forever.

Note 2. From the same Doctor, dist. 7. n. 11.: that in a created will, besides its entity and natural goodness, which belongs to it insofar as it is a positive being according to the degree of its entity more or less perfect, there is a threefold other moral goodness, namely objective, circumstantial, and gratuitous; the first comes from the object; the second from circumstance; the third from grace. The first is called goodness from the genus, and belongs to the act from the fact that it is exercised about an object according to the dictate of right reason; so that the object appears by probable or certain reason to be so fitting and congruous that a rational creature can tend toward it without sin. Circumstantial goodness is that which belongs to an elicited act together with all the circumstances which right reason dictates it ought to possess. I say "with all," because if any required circumstance were lacking, or another present which ought not to be present, the act would not have this goodness; for according to St. Dionysius, book De Divinis Nominibus c. 4. good comes from an integral cause, but evil from any defect whatsoever. Finally, the third goodness is that from which the act has the character of meritorious with respect to some reward; which goodness it has both from sanctifying grace and from divine acceptation; for no act can precisely be meritorious except through mediation of ordination, pact, or divine acceptation: but this goodness necessarily presupposes the two former; for an act, in order to be meritorious, must be occupied about a congruous object and have all the circumstances due to it. — The Doctor proposes an example of these goodnesses; for when one gives alms, it has goodness from the object, since right reason dictates it good to relieve the need of one's neighbor: it likewise has goodness from the circumstances, if he bestows that alms with the due circumstances: for instance, if from his own goods and not from another's, if at an opportune time, if for a good end, such as the love of God, etc. But it will have meritorious goodness if, besides the two aforementioned goodnesses, it is done from sanctifying grace and supernatural charity.

Note 3. From the same Doctor: that against this threefold goodness there is opposed a threefold malice. The first indeed is malice from the genus: namely when an act, which has only natural goodness, is directed to an object which according to right reason is unbefitting a rational creature: for instance if hatred tend toward God. The second is malice from some circumstance disordering the act, for instance if one bestow alms for the sake of vainglory. Finally, the third is demeritorious malice, which accrues to an act when it is not only not meritorious of eternal life, but rather of punishment. The Doctor notes moreover that each of those three malices can be considered as opposed to the goodness corresponding to it either privatively or contrarily. If it be considered in the first way, it signifies nothing else than the privation or negation of goodness in a free human act, for that instant in which a good act could be elicited by the will; and for an act to be evil is nothing else than for it to lack some such goodness: hence if one elicited an act without any good circumstances, the act so elicited would be evil with a malice privatively opposed to circumstantial goodness, because it would not have circumstantial goodness; and if one elicited an act not according to the inclination of charity, by that very fact the act would be evil with a malice privatively opposed to meritorious goodness; and in the same way, if one elicited an act without objective goodness, it would be evil with a malice privatively opposed to objective goodness. But if the act has not only a fitting object, but an unfitting object, then the act will have not only objective malice privative, but contrary objective malice. Similarly, if the act not only lacks the good circumstances it could have, but also has some circumstance it ought not to have, then it will have circumstantial malice not only privative but contrary; and finally, if it not only lacks meritorious goodness but has demeritorious malice, then it will be evil with a malice contrary to meritorious goodness.

— Finally, the Doctor adds that demeritorious, objective, and contrary malice are mutually convertible, but not circumstantial and demeritorious; for an act which is evil through lack of objective goodness must necessarily be evil with a malice contrary to that goodness. It is otherwise, however, with circumstantial and demeritorious malice; for it can happen that an act is evil through lack of circumstantial and meritorious goodness without having a malice contrary to them: for it can well happen that an act is not meritorious because it is not elicited from the inclination of charity, and yet is not demeritorious; for a morally good act elicited by a sinner, or by a man placed in the state of pure nature, would be neither meritorious nor demeritorious. Next, an act elicited about a good object without the addition of any good circumstance, whether from inconsiderateness, or from the fact that one was not bound to join any further good circumstance, would be evil with a circumstantial malice privative, not indeed positive or contrary, because it would not have any circumstance by reason of which it ought simply to be called evil, sufficient to found the ground of demerit.

— These things thus premised, three things remain to be determined: First, whether the will of the demons has been so obstinate in evil that they can in no way repent; Second, whence this hardening arises; Third, whether by reason of this hardening in evil the demons can elicit no good work.

First conclusion. — The will of the demons and of the other damned is so hardened in evil that it can nowhere truly be recalled to the state of justice.

This is common among all Catholic Doctors, and it is proved first by all those texts of Scripture by which it is signified that the damned are subjected to perpetual punishments never ending, and that presently they will nowhere obtain forgiveness of admitted sin, nor perform a salutary penance for their offenses: thus Matthew 25. Of the Reprobate it is said: Depart into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels: and further on: These shall go into everlasting punishment: and Mark 9. Of these same Reprobate Christ says: Their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished. Hence Apocalypse 20. Of the Devil it is said: He was cast into the pool of fire and brimstone, where both the beast and the false prophet shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

Secondly, this truth was defined in the 5th Synod, and also in the 6th action 16., where the Letter of Sophronius was approved, condemning Origen because he taught that the punishments of the damned would sometime end and that they themselves would be restored to the state of innocence. The same was determined in the Council of Lateran under Innocent III, chapter Firmiter, where it is decreed of the Reprobate that with the devil they shall receive eternal punishment. The same truth holy Athanasius teaches in his Symbol, where he says: They that have done good shall go into life everlasting, but they that have done evil into everlasting fire.

The same truth is proved from the Holy Fathers, who constantly say that the demons are utterly incapable of salutary penance and of recovering grace. So St. Gregory of Nyssa, book 1. Philosoph. cap. 3.: Man alone, he says, among intellectual creatures had the principle of doing penance so as to become worthy of pardon: for neither demons nor Angels can become worthy of pardon by doing penance: and lower down he says: What death is to men, the fall is to Angels.

— St. Damascene confirms it, book 2. De Fide c. 3., where he says absolutely that an angel is not capable of penance, because it lacks a body, which reason he explains thus: For what enables man to emerge from the mire of vices and turn himself to better fruit, that he has obtained on account of the weakness of the body. By which he openly declares that he speaks of fruitful penance, and of that which depends on a special aid and benignity of God.

To these St. Fulgentius subscribes, De Fide ad Petrum c. 3., where, after saying that God created all the angels with love of himself and with such liberty that each could have it and lose it, yet so that whoever lost it spontaneously could thereafter not resume it by his own choice and without the aid of grace, he adds: And of the angels indeed he so disposed and fulfilled it, that if any of them should lose the goodness of his will, he would never repair it by a divine gift. St. Gregory confirms and explains this very thing, book 2. Moralia c. 3.: God, he says, in no wise calls back the apostate spirit to penance, but cutting off the way of his pride, condemns him: and book 4. c. 9. and 10. he says absolutely: An angel fell by pride in such a way that he cannot be repaired, because he is recalled to the light of restoration by no hope of pardon, by no amendment of conversion.

The Seraphic Doctor confirms this truth in 2. dist. 7. art. 1. qu. 1., from St. Damascene book 2. De Fide c. 4., where he says: That what the fall is to angels, death is to men: but man after death cannot recover the good and right will which he lost in life: therefore, etc.

Secondly, similar is the reason of confirmation in good and of obstinacy in evil: but the angels, as soon as they were well moved, were confirmed in good: therefore also the wicked, as soon as they sinned, were obstinate in evil: just as therefore the good cannot fall, so neither can the wicked rise again.

Thirdly, the angel sinned more gravely than man: therefore he also ought to be punished more gravely: but the sin of man was punished with some irremediable punishment, such as the punishment of death, from which none escapes: therefore it is necessary that the sin of the angel, which was the death of the spirit, be punished with the punishment of death: but it could not be punished with the punishment of the death of nature: therefore it was necessary that he be punished with the punishment of eternal damnation.

You will say 1. St. Cyril of Jerusalem in Catechesis 2., after having magnified the benignity of God toward men in remitting their sins, subjoins: But we know not how much he has pardoned even the Angels; for he forgives them also: he holds therefore that the blessed angels can sin, and consequently that the demons can repent.

I deny the consequence, and to the antecedent I say that St. Cyril is to be understood as speaking of an indulgence anticipated through efficacious preventing grace and preservation; just as St. Augustine says that the grace of God is to be credited for the many sins we do not commit, which we would commit if God permitted. But that this was his mind, he himself declares, adding: He forgives them, since he alone is the one who cannot sin. For by this argument he proves that God grants indulgence to the holy Angels by sustaining them lest they sin, because certainly they are not impeccable by nature, as God is: but he does not signify that he pardons them after they have sinned.

You will say 2. If the angels could not repent, nor their will be rectified, that impotence would be sought either on the part of God, or on the part of the angel, or on the part of sin: but neither can be said. Not indeed on the part of God: both because the obstinacy of an evil will, or its impossibility of rectitude, is only a defect, not indeed an effect: therefore it has not an efficient but a deficient cause: but God is the deficient cause of nothing: therefore he is not the cause or reason of this impossibility; and because God antecedently wills all men and angels to be saved, and therefore the perpetual perdition of the angels is not to be drawn from him; and because if the devil asked pardon, he would obtain it from God, for God rejects no one who repents: therefore that impossibility does not arise on the part of God. Nor does it arise on the part of the will of the angelic nature: both because the angel by sinning did not lose the liberty of choice, because liberty of choice is natural to him: but by reason of free choice the angelic will was susceptible of rectitude before sin: therefore as much as lies in its nature, it is still susceptible of rectitude. And because angelic sin does not exceed the sin of man infinitely: therefore neither did it remove the angel from God infinitely: but the sin of man did not take away from him the possibility of recovering that beatitude: therefore neither did angelic sin take it away: and accordingly he can be restored. Finally, not on the part of sin; both because whatever sanctifying grace, were it in the will of the demon, would dissolve and purge away every sin from it; and consequently that sin is not of itself incurable. And because no guilt induces necessity in the will: therefore it does not take away the possibility of recovering rectitude, and accordingly there is no impossibility on the part of sin preventing the angelic will from obtaining its pristine integrity.

— The Seraphic Doctor answers that indeed that impossibility of recovering prior integrity is not to be sought precisely and formally from the damned, neither on the part of God, nor from the nature of the angel, nor from the gravity of sin: but from the state: Because, he says, since the will of the angel is outside the state of merit, therefore it is deprived of all grace; and because it is in the state of damnation, therefore there is present to it a most certain despair, which are two conditions altogether disposing the will to the impossibility of rectitude.

— We shall adduce another argument of the Subtle Doctor under the following Conclusion.

You will say 2. For the rectification of the will and the restitution of innocence two things are especially desired, namely indulgence on the part of the divine mercy, and the act of penance on the part of the sinner: but both are possible in the fallen angels. The first indeed, because the mercy of God is infinite, but the guilt of the demons finite; and the infinite cannot be overcome by the finite: therefore the divine mercy can remit and forgive the sin committed by the fallen angels. The second appears equally true, since the fallen angels preserved their natural powers intact, and therefore have a truly perfect and flexible liberty; and thus, as they were able to determine themselves to sin, so they can divest themselves of its affection: therefore from neither side does the restitution of their innocence involve a contradiction.

— The Seraphic Doctor answers by denying the consequence: for their impenitence arises not only from God denying grace and indulgence: but also from the fact that they are outside the state and time of meriting.

For, he says, it must be noted that in the formation and ordering of things the account is taken not principally of Mercy and Justice, but of Wisdom. For divine Wisdom decreed to make in the Universe a twofold rational creature, so that the Universe might be complete: one united to a body, as the rational soul; the other spiritual, as an angel: and since a substance wholly spiritual is wholly incorruptible and ingenerable, one angel could not be produced from another; and therefore they were produced all at once, and because they were produced at once, therefore they were to be glorified at once, or disposed to be glorified at once. And because they are spiritual and incorporeal, having in no way any retardative; hence it is that they were created in the place of glory, namely in the Empyrean; and so disposed to glory from the outset, both by reason of nature and of place; and therefore the time of merit was fixed for them as briefly as possible: namely up to the first deliberative aversion and conversion. But man, because he was created in an animal body for the begetting of offspring for the worship of God, and thus in a disposition more remote from glory, was given a distant place for meriting from his creation, namely the earthly Paradise; and a long-lasting term was fixed for him on account of the office of begetting offspring: and therefore when the Angel sinned, at once the time of the appointed merit went out, but not for man: and therefore this one could be rectified, but that one could not.

And this is what S. Augustine said, De mirabilibus sacrae Scripturae (or whoever is the Author): The Angel fell from the most sublime state of his order: therefore he could not rise again. It is evident, therefore, that the will of the Angel is not rectifiable, nor has it been from the time at which it fell; for since it was outside the state of merit, its damnation was most certainly revealed to it: and therefore just as the Blessed cannot fear damnation, so the evil Angel, on account of the certainty of damnation, cannot hope for salvation, and on account of the absence of grace cannot repent, and therefore cannot be good either.

Second conclusion. — The formal reason for which the demons and the damned cannot repent is not the inflexibility, or immobility, of their will in the evil end apprehended.

So the Subtle Doctor, in book 2, dist. 7, single question, where, having proposed the opinion of S. Thomas and of Henry, he attacks both, n. 1, first indeed by authority taken from chapter 3 of the book De Fide ad Petrum, which he praises under the name of S. Augustine, because in his time it was thought to be the work of Augustine, although in truth it has S. Fulgentius for its author. He writes:

If it were possible for human nature, which after it turned away from God lost the goodness of its will, to have it again of itself: far more possible would it be for the angelic nature to have this, since the less it is weighed down by the weight of an earthly body, the more it would be endowed with this faculty, and could have it.

Therefore, according to the mind of S. Fulgentius, the angelic will is not inflexible and immobile with respect to an object once apprehended; rather it is more flexible than the human; since liberty of choice arises from the dignity and subtilty of the nature, which since it is greater in the Angels than in men, imports an even greater flexibility. Add that inflexibility and immobile adherence to one part is a sign of earthly grossness and bodily weight, whereas flexibility is an argument of the subtilty of a spiritual nature. For brute animals, since they are wholly corporeal and have no spirituality at all, also lack that mobility and flexibility in operating with which men are endowed. Hence, weighed down by the weight of an earthly body, they tend toward the earth as toward a center. Hence the lighter and more subtle the elements are, the more flexible and subtle they are, as appears in fire and air. Therefore, according to the mind of S. Fulgentius, confirmed by experience, it is established that the will of perverse Angels is no more immobile and irrevocable from evil once apprehended than the will of impious men.

The Doctor proves the conclusion first because not only is the will of the damned Angel obstinate in evil, but also that of the damned man: but the cause of the obstinacy of man is not his immobility in operating, as the Thomists confess; therefore neither is it the cause of the obstinacy of the Angel. Nor indeed can a reason be assigned why the obstinacy of each damned one should be of a different kind, unless perhaps because the Angel recalls himself with greater difficulty from an election once made than a man: but from that greater difficulty it does not follow that he cannot be recalled at all; therefore there is no difference simpliciter between the two.

— The Doctor confirms this by the example of Lazarus, who, having died, was made inflexible and indeed immobile, whence afterwards, as long as he was separated, he neither merited nor demerited. But if you say that he, recalled to life, lost that immobility connaturally: I will reply that even if the evil angel were again placed in the state of the way and had the fitting means for rebounding from sin, in truth he could turn away from it.

If you had said. The soul of Lazarus, separated from the body, was not immobile in its apprehension, because God suspended his concurrence with respect to its operation; I will reply that just as this is asserted gratis and without foundation, so it is denied with reason and foundation. For it is not probable that his soul lay in the tomb with the body, but that as soon as it was loosed from it, it was carried into the bosom of Abraham, as is narrated in the Gospel of the soul of the parabolic Lazarus: and accordingly that soul had its operations, as the others have as soon as they exit from their bodies.

The Doctor proves, 2.: Therefore the angelic will would be immobile in the act which it once chose, because indeed its appetite must be proportioned to its cognitive power; but the cognitive faculty of the Angel, or intellect, apprehends immobilely, and without discourse, every object about which it is engaged: but this foundation is false: therefore also that from which it follows.

— The Thomists admit the major; the Doctor proves the minor: First indeed because they suppose what is false, affirming that the intellect is the sufficient mover of the will: for the intellect cannot otherwise move the will to act, except insofar as it proposes to it the object under the aspect of good and evil, or insofar as some practical imperium follows upon that propensity, determining the will to the pursuit of good or the flight from evil: but before the first sin it was proposing to the will those objects about which it operated under the aspect of a delightful good, and of dishonest evil; nor did there follow any imperium rather in order to the pursuit of the delightful good than to the flight of the dishonest evil, or the pursuit of another honest good, which was being proposed at the same time to the Angel; because otherwise all the Angels would be determined to act badly; because the intellect proposed objects of this kind under these aspects equally to all, and similar practical judgments followed in all; for there is no reason of diversity on the part of the intellect; indeed, if the intellect were to determine to anything, it ought rather to determine to the honest good than to the dishonest delightful good in that prior instant.

— Then, if from the reason of mover and moved, the intellect, immobile in apprehending, should make the will immobile, it would follow that the angelic will would be immobile not only after the first election of the will, but also in the very first, or before the first, because the intellect of them, just as immobilely it shows something after the first election, so also before it, even if it, immobilely apprehending, moves the appetite immobilely: therefore it will also move immobilely in the first act, and consequently, it makes the will immobile.

— Finally, the evil Angel had grace in the first instant: therefore in that instant he operated well: therefore if he is immobile, as the Thomists will, he ought always to have persevered in good operation. It is proved; because if in the first instant he did not have the good operation of the love of God above all things, he would sin mortally, especially according to the Thomists, who teach that the rational creature is held to love God above all things in the first instant of the use of reason: but he did not have mortal sin in that first instant, because he cannot have such with sanctifying grace: therefore he had such love, and therefore he operated well: and accordingly, if the will of the Angels is immobile in the first election, it necessarily ought always thus to have operated well; which consequent, since it is false, it must be confessed that his will is not invertible from its nature.

— Nor does that disparity avail which S. Thomas attempts to institute between the will of man and of the Angel, namely that the angelic intellect is immobile and moves the will necessarily, because it understands without discourse; but the human understands through discourse. For although this opinion would be true, which however we attacked above as false with the Doctor, nevertheless from that it would not follow that the intellect of the Angels is more immobile in its assent than the human. For so certitudinally, says the Doctor, that is, without doubting, does it hold the conclusion to which it runs by discourse, as the Angel holds it by seeing it in principle without discourse: therefore that immobility of the human intellect, that is, certitude, would equally make the will immobile, as that other which is posited in the Angel. Then, the human intellect adheres so immobilely, and without discourse, to the first principles, namely, that the honest good is to be loved and dishonest evil to be fled, as the Angel adheres without discourse to that proposition. Therefore the will ought to operate immobilely with respect to such an object, so that if it once willed to pursue the honest good, it ought always to will it: which is also false: therefore that disparity is nothing. Finally, although the Angel would not discourse, he could no less on that account change his apprehension on account of new motives previously not known; as is clear from the example of the demons, who first persuaded the killing of Christ, and afterwards dissuaded it, as the SS. Fathers testify, because they first did not know that death would be to their prejudice; but afterwards they knew it.

— These things are confirmed, first because when the Angel sinned he previously merited according to the doctrine of S. Thomas. Therefore by sinning he changed his will, nor did he stand immobilely in the prior apprehension. Then, when he sinned, either reasons occurred to him why he should not obey God and be subjected, nor continue his merit, or they did not occur. If the first, therefore his intellect did not at once represent to his will the object as immutably apprehensible, and thereupon the foundation of S. Thomas falls. If the second, therefore his will does not follow infallibly the dictamen of the intellect, since it adheres to the object even though the intellect supplies it with more urgent reasons by which it ought to be recalled from it. Moreover, if better reasons did not occur to him, but he sinned from a lesser consideration, how did he adhere more tenaciously to the object which moved him less? Finally, it is established by example that the devil in truth changed his will, for John 13. he persuaded Judas to betray Christ to death, but Matthew 27. he inspired the wife of Pilate to press for the liberation of Christ. Therefore the will of the demon is not immobile.

Third conclusion. — The obfirmation of the demon and of the damned in evil does not proceed even from an infused vitious habit in their will: nor from an act produced in them by God: but from the denial of the divine aid by which they could repent.

This conclusion contains three parts, of which

The first is proved. Namely, that that obduration does not proceed from an infused vitious habit: for if that habit concurred with the will, it would be either partly or totally. If partly, therefore since it does not by its own reason change the will, it follows, that if that will is not of itself determined to hatred of God, e.g. nor by such a habit could it be determined to that hatred: but if it be the total cause of that hatred, so that the will be related only merely passively with respect to that hatred produced by such a habit; it follows, that that hatred is not sinful, for that hatred would be caused totally by God at least immediately: but what is from God cannot be sin, since God cannot be the author of sin; therefore, etc. But the consequent is most false: therefore the will of the damned is not related merely passively with respect to that hatred of God; and therefore it has no habit which is the total cause of that hatred, and of the other sins of the demons.

By the same reasoning the second part is evinced; namely, that that obfirmation in evil is not made through any act produced by God in the will of the demons: for since such obfirmation is the cause of the continuation of the hatred of God, and of all the sins which the demons persevere in operating, if God were the total and only author of this obduration, he would likewise be held to be the author of their sins: which since it is absurd, that also from which it follows is absurd.

Therefore the third part is proved, namely, that the obstinacy of the demons proceeds partly from the will, partly from the denied grace, not dividedly but conjointly. For if that obstinacy of the evil will were from God, says the Doctor, n. 20.

therefore that malice will be from God, and thus God is the cause of sin; but if also from the will, it seems that it can of itself rebound from it, just as it could of itself will that evil badly. For by what power it moves itself to something, by the same it rests in it, and equally it can withdraw itself from it, and move to another more inclining, which is that opposite: therefore it is necessary that it proceed from both.

Wherefore the Doctor, replying below to this principle, says,

Since therefore it is argued, that if this is from the will alone: therefore the will alone can rebound to the opposite, namely from that object into which it has inordinately inclined itself; I answer: I say, that for meritoriously rebounding there is required another principle than the will, namely grace, which the Angel cannot have of himself, and God, according as he deserted him, disposed not to give it to him.

— S. Fulgentius confirms this same truth in book De Fide ad Petrum, c. 3. where he says that God so disposed the cause of the Angels and of men, that if by the choice of their own will they should strive to make their own will against the command of the Creator, there would be left to them for punishment a miserable eternity, to be tormented in errors and pains. And he adds: And concerning the Angels indeed he disposed and fulfilled this, that if any of them should lose the goodness of the will, he would never repair it by a divine gift. And below he adds: So that the evil Angels can neither ever be without the evil of the will nor of punishment; but while the evil of unjust aversion remains in them, the eternal damnation of just retribution remains also. And again, below he says, that no Angel, from the time they were cast out of heaven by the merit of their fall, can resume a good will.

Therefore not as it was free for the Angels to abstain from sin before they had sinned, so, sin committed, it is no longer free for them to abstain from it. For they fell by their transgression into the most miserable and adamantine necessity and servitude of sinning, from which, since all the doors of grace have been shut to them, they cannot extricate themselves by liberty of choice alone. Nor indeed is there given to them, as to men, a place for pardon, or any grace of rising again from their fall; but they are immersed so deeply in sin that every faculty of extricating themselves from it has been taken away from them.

While Gregory curiously searches out the cause of so horrible a judgment, he brings forward this in book 9. Moralia c. 18:

The spirits of the Angels, he says, sinned therefore irremissibly, because the more robustly they could stand, insofar as the commixture of flesh did not hold them. But man therefore merited pardon after his fault, because he received it through the carnal body, by which he is lesser than himself. Thus he whose degree was higher, his fall was made more grievous. And he who was bore no human flesh at all, persuading or deceiving himself alone, from which, though unjustly, he could contract matter of sinning, but was by his own iniquity the author of the perdition of his pride, and had the reason of another fault, in which his pride took its beginning, so that its punishment lacked an end. Thus he who was the author of deception for man, will deservedly bear both his own and that one's punishment, whose author he was of falling. For he sins more gravely, who is the author of sinning not only for himself, but also for another.

Fourth conclusion. — Neither the Angels nor men who are damned can elicit in any way a good meritorious work: yet they have the power to elicit a natural act, which could be morally good: which however they will nowhere elicit on account of the will obfirmated in evil.

This is the Doctor's, as to the three parts; of which he declares the First at n. 14. where he first premises that it does not repugn that the demon can have a meritorious act: neither logical power; because indeed it does not imply a contradiction that the demon can have grace, and with it operate; nor real passive power; because what is of its nature capable of receiving right volition, as long as it remains the same in itself, cannot become non-receptive of it: but the will of the demon was once receptive of good volition, and of meritorious act, because before damnation he could have merited, and have been blessed: nor finally real active power, because, he says, n. 15. the will with respect to right volition is an active partial principle; and it has it integral, according to Dionysius, and the same which it had in the state of innocence; and consequently it is not true that there is denied to him the power, that is, the active partial principle of meritorious volition: but this principle is not total, because the will alone does not suffice for meritoriously willing; but grace is required as a cooperating principle.

Nor is that will a principal partial principle, or sufficient for positing the partial principle, namely grace, in being. For although grace, once had, the will using it is the principal agent with respect to the act: grace not had, it itself is not sufficient for positing grace in being: because grace cannot inhere except from God alone creating. And thus the Angel has not the total active principle for acting such an act, nor is he the principal partial active principle, in whose power it is to produce the remaining partial active principle in being, and to remove the impediment of the use of itself, and of its co-principle, for eliciting the act, and the common effect of them.

— And he confirms this by this example:

If someone possessing sight were in darkness: although he would then have the partial principle of the act of seeing, and the principal principle of seeing, when light and the visual power come together: he still does not then have the total principle, nor a principal principle sufficient to produce that which is required for the effect of those two partial principles; nor can he > even remove the impediments, and therefore although this man has the visual power, insofar as he has a diminished principle with respect to vision, it would nevertheless not be within his power to see. So I say that it is not within an angel's power to will meritoriously, because it is not within his power to have grace, nor consequently to use grace; nor even to use his will together with that grace so as to elicit his act, and all these negations are true: because it is not within his power to have the form which he might use, nor to remove the impediments.

Hence he concludes n. 17:

accordingly, then, as regards all the members, of power, inasmuch as it is a principle, it does not seem it should be denied that angels can will meritoriously, except because they do not have the total principle of meriting; nor the principal partial principle with respect to good volition; nor with respect to the special grace which is required for good volition.

He subjoins, moreover, that between the devil and meritorious work there is no intrinsic repugnance, but only extrinsic; namely, because God cannot grant grace to the devil, from absolute impotence, as though the devil's having grace indeed involved a contradiction:

For since, he says at n. 18, angelic nature is capable of grace, it follows that there is no contradiction in this, that grace should inform that nature: but it is repugnant only by reason of God's ordinary power, who must be conformable in acting to the rules predetermined by divine wisdom, or rather by divine will, which with respect to the rational creature to be beatified or punished established these rules: namely, that wherever the tree falls, there shall it be; that is, in whosoever rational creature's love it shall have remained, in him it shall remain: and their fire shall not be extinguished, and their worm shall not die, and these shall go into everlasting punishment; but the just into life eternal: and from such rules of Scripture Augustin concludes in book 21 De Civitate Dei chs. 23 and 24, that it is certain God will never give them grace: Accordingly, then, it is impossible for them to will well: because it is impossible for God (I speak of ordinary power) to give them grace.

Thus the Doctor.

The second part is also evident from the same Doctor, namely, that demons can have a morally good act; indeed, after he had impugned the opinion of St. Thomas, who says that demons can elicit no good act whatsoever, because they deform every act by some inordinate circumstance, referring it inordinately to love of self; and because they cannot cease from evil on account of their vehement inclination to it, he concludes at n. 24 that they do not necessarily have some evil act, neither speaking of any determinate act, nor of an indeterminate or vague one. He proves the first part, because supposing that it is not of the nature of the angelic will to persevere perpetually in an act once elicited, nothing else determinative of it toward any determinate act can be assigned unless it be supposed that they have some habit determining them to it: but such a habit is asserted above all most agreeably; and besides it is absurd that all the evil acts which a demon can have, he should have simultaneously, and also conserve simultaneously; which would follow from the opposite opinion: therefore neither a habit, nor his very will itself, is determined to all of them: therefore he can at times subsist without some one of them.

He proves also the third part, namely, that the will of the demon has no indeterminate evil act; because at least with respect to the act in general, it can have some indifferent act, that is, one which has neither all the circumstances required for an act morally good, nor even any evil circumstance positively opposed to the good circumstances, for absolutely nothing prevents its having such. For it seems wonderful, says the Doctor, to deny a natural power in that excellent nature, where nothing appears for which it should be denied. Nevertheless the Doctor infers that it is probable that by this power they do not go forth into act, on account of their vehement malice, according to which it is more probable that they act than according to natural power, according to which they could act into acts somehow opposed. From these things it is clear how badly certain persons accuse the Doctor, as though he had truly taught that demons sometimes elicit an honest work; for although he judges this not to be impossible, and shows that all the arguments which St. Thomas brings forward to prove it are of no moment, yet he holds that in fact demons can elicit no good moral work, on account, namely, of that supreme malice with which their will is affected.

You will say 1. From St. James ch. 2, The demons believe, and tremble: but to believe and to tremble are good acts: therefore they sometimes elicit good acts, and thus not every act of theirs is evil.

He denies the minor. The Doctor, n. 25. Because although that act of believing would be good diminutively, inasmuch, namely, as it would have a good object, and would not be affected by any evil circumstance, yet it would not for that very reason be good simply, since some circumstance could be wanting to it which would be required for it to be good: whence it could be an indifferent act. Or as the Doctor says, although they believe, still that act of believing is evil in them, because they hate the thing believed.

You will say 2. In demons and the damned there remains the image of God, by reason of which they are capable of the love of God himself: but they are not capable of him except by a good act: therefore they have a good act.

The Doctor answers, denying the minor. For they are participators of the image of God, and capable of it through this, that they have an intellectual nature, even if they had no good act whatever, and even if they did not have proximate potency for such an act, in which there is no difficulty.

You will say 3. Nothing violent is perpetual, because it is against the inclination of the subject in which it inheres; hence it is established, because if it were left to itself, it would immediately regain its pristine natural state, as is evident in heated water: but sin is against the inclination of rational nature: therefore it cannot be perpetual, and consequently they will be able at some time to work good.

He answers 1. The Doctor, distinguishing the major: nothing violent is perpetual in merely natural causes — I concede; in causes partly natural, partly free — I deny.

True indeed it is, he says, that in merely natural agents, the impediments ceasing, there is a return to the natural disposition, the violent action not preventing it. And the reason is, because the intrinsic principle is necessary with respect to natural goodness, insofar as it is of itself: and therefore it always causes it unless it be overcome by what dominates. In this way the will is not the perpetual cause of its goodness in its act, but only has a certain natural, quasi passive inclination to goodness in act; which although it could give to the act, it is nevertheless not inclined to give it with natural necessity, as a heavy body is inclined to descend downward.

He answers 2. distinguishing the minor: sin is against the inclination of nature, insofar as it is against the right act to which nature inclines — I concede; insofar as nature itself of itself, according to the affection for the advantageous, would have no inclination toward sin — I deny.

You will say 4. The damned in hell repent of their past sins, according to that passage of Wisdom 5¹ where the damned, repenting, and groaning through anguish of spirit, etc. — It is confirmed: for that rich man Epulo, who was buried in hell, desired that Abraham send someone to his brothers living in the world, inasmuch as he might admonish them to do penance, lest after death they rush with him into the place of torments: but this was an honest and good work: therefore truly the damned can work some good work.

I deny the consequence, and to the authority of Scripture I say, that the damned in hell repent of their past sins not from a good end, but from malice: wherein such repentance signifies nothing other than a certain remorse of conscience, which is always in all the damned, avenging the past sins; which remorse is not sin, but the punishment of sin.

To the confirmation. I say, that that compassion of the rich man arose not from natural piety, nor from love of his brothers, but from self-love: for he feared lest he himself be punished more severely, if his brothers were damned together with him, on account of the sins which they had committed while he either instigating, or setting an evil example.

You will object 5. No intellect can be so perverse, nor constituted in such a state, that it cannot understand the first principles proposed: therefore neither can the will be so corrupted that it cannot will the ultimate end: but in willing the ultimate end, it will elicit a good act, for volition of the ultimate end is a right operation: therefore the will of the damned will at some time be able to will well. The sequel of the major is proved: as the principle stands in speculative matters, so the end stands in moral matters. Next: every evil man is ignorant: therefore no malice can be in the will unless a prior error be in the intellect; and consequently where such error cannot be in the intellect — that it not understand the object inasmuch as it is intelligible — there too the will can fail to be so perverted that it cannot rightly will the good.

The Doctor answers, denying the sequel, which, he says, can press only Thomists asserting the intellect to be the sufficient mover of the will; for thence it follows that the intellect of the first angel cannot rightly conceive any practical principle without moving the will conformably, and therefore toward willing rightly.

To the first proof of the sequel. I say, that proposition is to be understood thus; that as principles stand to conclusions in speculative matters, so the end stands to the means in operable matters: not indeed as regards everything, but as regards this, that just as one cannot assent to a conclusion without assenting to the principles, and therefore must first assent to the principle than to the conclusion: so also one cannot will the means unless he wills the end; and therefore must first will the end rather than the means: but the sense is not that if error cannot be had in the intellect concerning the principle, error likewise cannot be had in the will concerning the end. But the reason why the will can err concerning the end, although the intellect cannot err concerning the first principles, is manifest: because the intellect is a natural cause, and is naturally determined by the proposed principle to right cognition, whence it must necessarily have it: but the will is a free cause, and is not determined by the proposed end to the right act: therefore, says the Doctor, it can be so averse that however great a good is shown to it, it does not move it to loving it, at least orderly; whence it does not follow: the intellect cannot err concerning the first principles: therefore the will cannot sin: for although there cannot be error in the intellect, the will can no less fail; otherwise it would follow that the will could not err in any state whatsoever.

You will object 6. If the demons and the damned necessarily will evil, it follows that they are always in the act of willing evil: therefore they increase their malice infinitely, and consequently will always increase punishment, so that just as they will never arrive at the term of malice, so nowhere will they have a term of punishment. — It is confirmed: if punishment and malice can always be increased in the damned, similarly goodness and reward can be increased in the blessed: but the consequent is absurd, for thence it would follow that the blessed would never arrive at the term of beatitude: therefore, etc.

He denies the major. The Doctor, n. 27. because, he says, when a habit is at its summit, and has everything required for its complement in such a subject, or according to the term fixed for it by divine wisdom, all subsequent acts add nothing, but proceed only from the habit already generated; just as the acts of an angel do not augment his habit of charity, neither effectively nor meritoriously, because it is at its term, either according to the nature of the habit, or according to the capacity of the subject, or at least according to the term fixed for it by God, but all those acts proceed from the fullness of that habit thus perfect: so it is in the case at hand: for the perfection, or complement, of the malice of the damned is at its term according to the rule of divine wisdom, which does not permit them to grow in malice intensively: and therefore subsequent acts do not augment the aforementioned habit, but stand to it as its effects. Thus the Doctor; whereby he signifies that although the damned always will evil, yet they do not for that reason increase their malice intensively, since plainly their malice is at its term. — Whence it follows that equally their punishment ought not to be increased, just as the glory of the blessed is not increased: because, he says, at num. 28. as the substantial reward in the first instant in which some angel is blessed is determined, and does not thereafter grow, because the good acts which follow are not meritorious, although they be good; so in a damned angel, in the first instant of his damnation, there is determined to him a certain punishment, which does not grow intensively: nevertheless the evil acts which he elicits will not go unpunished, just as neither will the good acts of the good angel go unrewarded: for as the acts of the holy angels are included in the first act, because they proceed from the perfection of the beatific act; but as regards the accidental reward which they can have, each act is a reward to him: so also the evil acts which the damned elicits are included in the first punishment certainly determined to him: whence each, just as he could have an accidental and proper punishment, so has himself for punishment, according to that saying of St. Augustine book one of the Confessions ch. 12. Thou hast commanded, O Lord, and so it is, that every sinner be a punishment to himself: for the most powerful and greatest punishment is the privation of the greatest good, such as is formally in the evil act the malice of fault, averting the sinner from God. Therefore their punishment will grow infinitely extensively, as also their malice, but neither intensively. Thus the Doctor.

You will insist. The acts of the damned are demeritorious because they are evil: therefore they ought to have a punishment corresponding to them.

The Doctor answers, it can be conceded that the act of the damned can be culpable, yet not properly demeritorious: because it is not elicited by a wayfarer, whose alone it is to merit and demerit: whence more properly that act can be called the act of one damned than of one demeriting: as on the other side the act of the blessed, although acceptable to God, is nevertheless not properly meritorious, but is rather called a beatific act, or the act of one blessed, or proceeding from beatitude.

For the more evident solution, however, of this last difficulty, it pleases us to set down what the Seraphic Doctor teaches, dist. 7. art. 1. quest. 2. where, speaking of the evil will of the demons, he says:

It can be considered threefoldly: namely, as regards deformity, as regards proneness, and as regards actuality. As regards deformity, the devil is continually in an evil will, so that no variation intervenes through a cessation or lessening of the deformity: for the stain of sin so adhered to the devil's will that in no way can it be separated from it. As regards proneness, it is a continuation of the same; yet in such a way that variation intervenes as to the manner of inclining; for the devil has proneness even now toward that which he first coveted, but in a different manner than before: for he formerly coveted it with the intention of obtaining it, whence he said, I will set my seat to the north, etc.; now however he covets, insofar as lies in him, like the ambitious man who hopes to obtain the episcopate; even if he does not obtain it, ambition does not depart, but the manner of aspiring varies: so it is also in the devil. As regards actuality, there is continuation in the act of sinning; yet variation intervenes as to genus, for he does not sin continuously with the sin of one genus, since he is not moved at once by diverse motions; for now he sins by pride, now by envy, etc.; nevertheless his will never rests; because it is never wearied, since it is incorruptible; and since perversity reigns in it, it always deforms and depraves every act which it elicits, and thus sins continuously.

But in what manner the malice of the demons is augmented, he discloses in the following Question, teaching that it is always increased as regards administrative power, namely in comparison with man: but not as regards contemplative power, whereby there is a simple and necessary aversion from God; whence he concludes that the demon's demerit is not augmented.

For unto the increase, he says, of an evil will, or demerit, an inordinate affection does not suffice, because this is in the damned and will be unto eternity: but beyond the time of merit there is required the state of meriting and demeriting: but the devil is in the state of demeriting as regards administrative power, not indeed as regards the contemplative. But the reason of this is, because God so founded the universe that the greater and mightier aid the lesser; therefore he gave to the angel not only contemplative power, whereby he might merit and be converted to God, but also administrative, whereby he might assist man. Therefore since the contemplative power was of the angel in himself, as regards that there was prefixed to him a space of meriting and de>meriting up to the first conversion, or aversion. But because the administrative has respect to man; therefore there was prefixed to the angel a space of meriting and demeriting, until men should be assumed wholly into glory: there remained therefore as regards that power the state of meriting and demeriting, and it remains even unto the day of judgment; but since merit and demerit is not in administrative power except through contemplative power, and in goods the contemplative is so converted into good that it cannot be turned away, therefore the administrative has only the place of meriting: on the contrary, because in evils the contemplative is so averted that it cannot be converted; therefore as regards the administrative there is only the place and space of demeriting. And herein it is manifest that the divine decree remains just and inviolate; because the time which he had prefixed from creation he ought not take away, neither from the good nor from the wicked; and for those indeed loving God that space was converted into good; but for impious ones, and sinning angels, it was converted into evil; and therefore it is manifest in what manner evil will grows in the wicked, namely as regards administrative power only.

Such the Seraphic Doctor, whereby he teaches the same as the Subtle Doctor, namely that the demerit of the demons is increased extensively, not intensively, since plainly their malice is increased through various acts against men whom they infest, but is not increased by reason of the aversion which they have toward God, whom from the beginning they pursue with supreme hatred.