Scotus Academicus, Tomus decimus: De Baptismo, De Poenitentia, De Extrema Unctione

NOTE 1. Since a habitual virtue becomes known only through acts, and acts through their objects, the being and nature of the virtue of penance can be declared and made manifest no better than through knowledge of its object. Its object, however, is twofold: one is material, the other formal, so named by analogy with the matter and form that physically constitute some whole. For just as matter is of itself indifferent to various forms, and consequently to the constitution of various composites, but through form is determined to a certain composite, so a thing about which virtues are occupied, since of itself it is indifferent to various reasons for love or hatred, and consequently to the constitution of various virtues, is called the material object; whereas the very motive reason for love or hatred, by which that thing is determined to constitute a certain virtue, is called the formal object. Thus, for example, money to be given to a needy person can be called the material object, because it is indifferent to the virtue of almsgiving, of liberality, and of restitutive justice; but the giving of that money to relieve the needy person’s misery out of compassion determines the very bestowal of the money to the virtue of almsgiving, just as giving it in order to restore what was taken determines that money to the virtue of restitutive justice.

NOTE 2. The material object of a virtue is again twofold, namely, remote and proximate. I call the proximate object that about which the virtue is occupied first: thus an internal or external act of divine worship, taken as a sign of God’s supreme excellence and of our reverence and subjection toward him, can be called the proximate object of the virtue of Religion. Likewise, the proximate material object of Penance, insofar as it is vindicative justice, can be called everything taken to constitute equality between guilt and punishment, namely, the punishment itself corresponding to the guilt. (This, indeed, is nothing other than an internal or external act taken for vindication; for punishment is that about which the primary effect of Penance is concerned, that is, what Penance immediately intends, since it intends to inflict punishment for a sin committed.) But I call the remote object that between which and the internal act elicited by the virtue of Penance something intervenes: thus between sin, or evil insofar as it is subject to vindication, and the internal act of Penance, namely, the will to vindicate, there intervenes vengeance. Hence it follows that evil insofar as it is subject to vindication is the remote object.

NOTE 3. Evil subject to vindication is nothing other than that which merits punishment in vengeance and which God wills to be punished. It follows that every sin, not only mortal but also venial, is included under the aspect of evil subject to vindication. For although venial sin does not gravely offend God, and therefore does not merit a grave punishment or penalty, nevertheless it is certain that it merits some punishment: punishment is correlated with guilt; therefore, where the guilt is light, the punishment and penalty must at least be light. This punishment is owed for the sin so long as it remains under the aspect of sin and offense against God, and consequently until it is washed away through Penance: “For, says the Doctor, In IV Sent., d. 14, q. 1, n. 7, after the act of sin, when the offense, stain, and debt have ceased, nothing remains except this relation of reason, namely, an ordering to punishment, which, as it is something unfitting to the soul itself, is called its stain, just as the opposite is called beauty; but insofar as it is an obligation formally to that punishment, it is called debt; and insofar as it is an act of the divine will, in which this whole reality consists, by which act it is ordered to such punishment, it is called offense. For in God to be offended or angry is nothing other than to will to avenge with this punishment; and although God is said figuratively to be angry or offended, yet, taking this account of being angry to mean willing to avenge, with the passion accompanying this willing excluded, God is formally angry or offended, because he formally wills to avenge a sin committed against his law.” Hence, he adds in n. 8 that what was said to remain in the sinner after the act can be erased, and sometimes is erased, in accord with that of the Creed, the remission of sins. And in n. 9: “I say that it is not remitted without punishment, or an equivalent in divine acceptance, because by every sin God is offended, as Scripture sufficiently proclaims; but his offense or anger, as was said, is his willing to avenge, or to exact something sufficient to appease him. Therefore, given any sin whatsoever, God wills to avenge himself upon the sinner; but to will to avenge is to will to punish. Therefore, after a sin has been committed, some punishment or equivalent in divine acceptance is required for its removal. So says the Doctor.” By these words he signifies that habitual sin, too, is included under the object of the virtue of Penance.

These points being established, three things remain to be determined: first, what is the proximate object toward which Penance tends; second, what is its remote material object; third, what is its formal object.

First conclusion. — THE PROXIMATE OBJECT OF THE VIRTUE OF PENANCE IS ANY ACT OF THE PENITENT, WHETHER INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL, THAT IS ELICITED AND TAKEN UP TO AVENGE SIN.

The truth of this assertion is evident from the second Note. For just as the proximate material object of commutative justice is everything taken to constitute equality between what is given and what is received, while the objects of distributive justice are rewards or common goods distributed according to each person’s merit, so, by the same reasoning, the proximate material object of Penance, insofar as it is vindicative justice, will be what is taken up in vengeance for an offense committed. This, however, is nothing other than a punitive internal or external act taken up to avenge; therefore both these acts can be considered the primary object of Penance.

Furthermore, that is the primary material object of the virtue of Penance which it intends first. But Penance primarily intends a punishment to be inflicted in vengeance for a crime; for Penance primarily intends that from which it obtains its formal character and denomination. But it obtains both from the punishment taken up in vengeance: for Penance is named from the enduring of punishment, and its formal character, insofar as it is a special virtue, consists chiefly in the character of vengeance. Therefore, it derives its formal character from that punishment taken up in vengeance.

YOU WILL SAY: Punishment is an effect of penance; therefore it cannot be considered its primary object. — I DENY the consequence: for in the moral virtues the same external acts that are done by a virtue, and are effects of the internal acts of the will elicited by the virtue—I mean those very same acts—are, insofar as they are prior in the order of intention, the object or matter of other virtues, as is clear from the example of distributive and commutative justice. Why, then, could not punishment taken up in vengeance, which is as it were an effect of Penance itself, be considered its primary object?

YOU WILL PRESS: The primary object has the character of an end, at least an immediate one; but end and effect cannot be one and the same. Therefore, since the acts by which punishment is taken up in vengeance for sin have the character of an effect of Penance, they cannot be considered its primary object. — I DENY the minor premise. For it is a familiar teaching among philosophers that end and effect can coincide in the same thing under different respects. Health, for example, can be both an effect and an end of walking; and divine worship—that is, an internal or external act taken as a sign of God’s supreme excellence and of our subjection—is an effect of the virtue of Religion and also its proximate end, which that virtue intends, or the object which it intends proximately. Why, then, could not the same punishment that the penitent inflicts upon himself be both an effect and a proximate end, or the object which Penance intends proximately?

Second conclusion. — THE REMOTE MATERIAL OBJECT OF THE VIRTUE OF PENANCE IS EVERY SIN, BOTH ACTUAL AND HABITUAL, COMMITTED BY THE PENITENT.

It is proved: that is the remote material object of the virtue of Penance which it intends through some means. But Penance is directed toward sin by means of punishment taken up in vengeance; therefore one’s own sin, committed by the penitent, is considered the remote object of Penance. It could nevertheless be called the proximate object insofar as it is reached by the elicited act of Penance itself. For, as our Bosco very aptly observes, disp. 6, sect. 1, conc. 7, Penance, by the force of the same affection and effect that proceeds proximately from it, in the same movement by which it is concerned with some act, also reaches the sin. For the virtue of penance does not consist in that bare operation, that is, in the will to avenge, signified by the expression I will avenge, but through it passes to the sin itself, so that this will, I will avenge the sin, in fact applies the punishment owed for the sin. — I said that every sin, both actual and habitual, is the object of the virtue of Penance. For although sometimes a vicious habit remains even in the justified, nevertheless, as Lugo teaches, disp. 3, n. 15, this habit, as it persists, can be matter for Penance with respect to an act of retractation: for I can will that the sin had not been, so that God might not have been offended, just as after a wound or disease has been cured I can grieve over the cause that brought on the disease or wound. Moreover, I can will to avenge that sin and to make satisfaction for it, if its remission is doubtful or conditional, on the supposition that it has not been remitted. This is much truer, indeed, of habitual sin once remitted. For, as the Doctor teaches admirably, In IV Sent., d. 14, q. 1: “What remains in the sinner after the act can be erased, and sometimes is erased, in accord with that of the Creed: I believe in the remission of sins. God remits sins and sometimes remits them; this is proved as follows: sometimes a predestined person falls into mortal sin. This is clear in the cases of David, Peter, and Paul, and almost countless others. But he cannot be beatified, which is what he is principally ordained to by predestination, unless the sin is erased, taking ‘sin’ in the manner just described. For no one is beatified while remaining bound to pay a punishment, either to be paid simultaneously with glory—which is impossible, since, at the very least according to the divine disposition, that glory and any punishment whatsoever are incompatible—or to be paid after glorification, which is likewise impossible, since God ordains that glory to be final in everyone, so that no punishment will follow. Therefore, before glorification, this obligation to undergo punishment at some time must be remitted or erased. Second, I say that it is not remitted without punishment, or an equivalent in divine acceptance, because by every sin God is offended, as Scripture sufficiently proclaims; but his offense or anger, as was said, is his willing to avenge or to exact something sufficient to appease him. Therefore, given any sin whatsoever, God wills to avenge himself upon the sinner; but to will to avenge is to will to punish. Therefore, after a sin has been committed, some punishment or equivalent in divine acceptance is required for its removal.” Thus the Doctor. By these words he signifies that not only the debt of guilt remaining after a sinful action, but also a vicious habit, is subject to vengeance, or can be ordered to punishment, and consequently is the material object of the virtue of Penance.

YOU WILL SAY: A special virtue must have a special object; but Penance is a special virtue; therefore it must have a determinate object. Yet every sin is not the determinate object of some one virtue, but of all of them, since all the virtues, taken generally, contend against all sins, for each has some determinate vice to which it is opposed. — I DISTINGUISH the consequent: it must have a determinate formal object, I grant; a material one, I deny. Although Penance tends toward all sins, which are separately and distributively opposed by the other virtues, nevertheless penance tends toward sins in some special respect in which the other virtues do not reach them, namely, under the aspect of being subject to vengeance and punishment, as will appear from the following Conclusion.

Third conclusion. — THE FORMAL AND SPECIFYING OBJECT OF THE VIRTUE OF PENANCE IS SIN AS SUBJECT TO VENGEANCE. This is the Doctor’s teaching, In IV Sent., d. 14, q. 2, n. 1, where he says: “To repent is a special act” of virtue. It is proved, because that act is naturally apt to have a special object and special ordered circumstances: an object, namely, sin subject to vengeance; and circumstances that befit the act as rightly tending toward such an object, namely, its end, manner, and the like. And further on, in n. 9, he shows that Penance is less perfect than an act of charity, “because, he says, the object of charity in itself is God” under the noblest objective aspect; but the proper object of this virtue is evil subject to vengeance, or the guilty person upon whom vengeance is to be taken.

The Conclusion is proved as follows: the sin toward which Penance tends must be reached under a special aspect under which it is not reached by the other virtues; but that aspect is none other than liability to vengeance, or the obligation to punish sin; therefore, and so forth. The major premise is established. The minor premise is proved: if there were some aspect under which Penance tended toward sin, it would most likely be its malice insofar as it is to be detested and abhorred. But this aspect is not peculiar to Penance, since all the virtues, at least those tending toward God, also tend toward detestation of sin. For charity abhors sin insofar as it is an evil opposed to God’s infinite goodness, which charity considers; for every sin is an evil against God, at least extrinsically, because it displeases God and is opposed to his glory. But since it belongs to the same virtue to detest the evil opposed to the object whose pursuit belongs to that virtue, charity for this reason detests every sin. Likewise, since every sin deprives us of supernatural beatitude and subjects us to eternal punishments inflicted by God as avenger, detestation of sin from such a motive pertains not to Penance but to hope. Sin can also be considered insofar as it militates against God’s honor, reverence, and worship; and in this respect its detestation pertains to the virtue of Religion. The same must be said of the other virtues that tend toward God. Consequently, the reason for detestation cannot be proper to the virtue of Penance alone; and therefore sin as detestable is not the formal and specifying object of that virtue.

Furthermore: sin as subject to vengeance must be reached by some virtue; but it cannot be reached by any virtue other than Penance; therefore, as such, it is the specifying object of Penance. The major premise is established: for, as St. Augustine says, Confessions, bk. 1, “You have ordained, Lord, and so it is, that every sinner be a punishment to himself.” And with good reason. For, as the Doctor said above, since by every sin God is offended and is therefore moved toward the sinner by an impulse of vengeance, and since willing to avenge is the same as willing to punish, it follows that a sinful person cannot be reconciled to God or appease him without first avenging and punishing sin in himself. The minor premise is also established: for no virtue tends toward sin insofar as it is to be punished in order to make satisfaction to God, except Penance alone; therefore, and so forth.

YOU WILL SAY: The divine right, injured by the offense and to be repaired by satisfaction and a certain compensation, is the formal object of Penance; therefore, that object is not sin as subject to vengeance and punishment. — I answer, denying the antecedent: divine right considered in this way can indeed be called the end of Penance, but not its object. For Penance tends toward vengeance for sin so that, insofar as lies within the sinner, with God’s help, he may make satisfaction to God and repair the injury inflicted upon him. Thus the restoration of that divine right and the reparation of the offense are the end moving the penitent to avenge sin. Hence that divine right, insofar as it is to be compensated, has rather the character of an end than of an object with respect to the virtue of Penance.