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

NOTE 1. Habit in general is divided into the intellectual and the appetitive. An intellectual habit is one received subjectively in the intellect; and it is twofold: one is acquired through one’s own repeated acts; the other is infused by God, through God’s special generosity. The infused is again twofold: either as to substance, namely, one that cannot be acquired at all by any human effort, but comes from God’s sole generosity, such as the theological virtues; or as to mode, namely, one that could be acquired through one’s own effort and generated by repeated acts, but not with such ease or in so short a time; such are habits of knowledge, or of the moral virtues, sometimes granted by God to human beings. The acquired is likewise twofold, namely, speculative and practical. Speculative is that which inclines one to the bare contemplation of an object and undertakes nothing concerning it that pertains to regulating the will. This too is twofold: either real, such as metaphysics, mathematics, and physics; or rational, such as grammar, rhetoric, and logic. Practical is that which concerns things to be done, such as prudence, or things to be made, such as both mechanical and liberal arts. An appetitive habit is one that resides subjectively in the appetitive faculty. It too is twofold: acquired and infused¹. The acquired is again twofold: directed to oneself, such as fortitude and temperance, or directed to another, such as justice. The infused is likewise twofold: directed to oneself, such as hope, and directed to another, such as charity. The question, then, is to which order of habits Penance of this kind should be assigned.

NOTE 2. In general, any virtue habit has a twofold subject, namely, immediate and mediate. The first is the faculty in which that habit immediately resides and which it makes ready and prepared to elicit its acts. Some distinguish three such subjects: intellect, will, and sensitive appetite. For prudence is located in the intellect, justice in the will, and temperance and fortitude, according to St. Thomas, in the sensitive appetite. But the Subtle Doctor objects, arguing that it is received also in the will. The second consists of the persons, or supposits, in which those virtues reside. The question, therefore, is what the immediate and mediate subject of the virtue of Penance is, that is, in which faculty and in which persons it resides.

NOTE 3. An appetitive virtue is a habit that inclines the will to will and avoid something. In general, two kinds are assigned according to the twofold ordering intended by that habit. For one orders its subject toward itself, namely, to will rightly those things that concern the subject in which it resides, such as temperance and fortitude; for these virtues order a person concerning things that are fitting for that person. Another orders one toward another, namely, to render and hand over to that other what is his own, such as justice, which inclines its possessor to will for another what is his own. Hence some virtues make a person upright in himself, without any ordering toward another, such as temperance, whose effect is the moderation of the passions of the concupiscible appetite in relation to oneself; while others make a person upright in relation to another, such as justice, whose office is to govern a person so that he render to another what is his own.

These points having been observed, two matters remain to be determined: what the immediate as well as the mediate subject of the virtue of Penance is.

First conclusion. — THE VIRTUE OF PENANCE RESIDES IMMEDIATELY IN THE WILL, INSOFAR AS IT IS ORDERED TOWARD ANOTHER. So says the Doctor, d. 14, q. 2, n. 5, where he says: To repent is not an act of any intellectual virtue, because it is an act of appetite as appetite, which commands the intellect to consider and the will to detest… Moreover, this commanding belongs only to appetite, or to the will; for no sensitive power can command the intellect and the will and unite them in their acts; nor can the intellect command itself and the will: only the will commands itself and the intellect. That is, Penance is willing to avenge sin. But this willing belongs to the will alone, because commanding the intellect to consider and the will to detest the gravity of the offense belongs to the will alone. It does not belong to a sensitive power, since no sensitive faculty can command the intellect or the will; for sensitive appetite is subject to the rational appetite, in accordance with Genesis: Your desire shall be subject to you, and you shall rule over it. Nor does it belong to the intellect, because the intellect cannot command itself or the will. Therefore, that command, or willing to avenge sin, pertains to the will alone.

The Doctor confirms this, because the will alone can command itself, and also the intellect, as St. Augustine teaches in bk. XI of De Trinitate, ch. 3, where he writes that the will joins the parent to its offspring: that is, it joins the intellect, according to the intelligible species, with actual cognition, which is its offspring. Hence the parent of cognition is fecund memory, namely, the intellect made fruitful by an object or intelligible species; the offspring, however, is the act of understanding, or understanding itself. Thus the will joins the parent to its offspring when it commands the intellect to produce an act of understanding together with the object. Likewise, the will commands itself, since nothing is more within the will’s power than the will itself, that is, its act. Therefore, since commanding pertains to the will, it follows that imperative willing, or the will to avenge sin, which is the very act of the virtue of Penance, pertains to the will and not to the intellect.

Second, the Doctor proves in the same place that an intellectual virtue is ordered to cognition of the true insofar as it is true. For an intellectual virtue judges that something is true or is not true, whether in speculative or practical matters, and dictates that this is to be considered or not considered, done or not done. But Penance, or willing to avenge sin, is not an act by which something is thus dictated as to be done or avoided, considered or not considered; rather, it commands that sin be punished. Therefore, willing to avenge is not an act of the intellect or of the sensitive appetite, but of the will; and consequently the virtue of Penance resides in the will alone.

The Doctor proves the second part in the same place, namely, that willing to avenge a sin one has committed is an act of an appetitive virtue ordered toward another, of the kind that justice is, “because,” he says, “someone can exercise this act of avenging in another in the same way according to right reason as in himself. For even if he exercises it in himself, he exercises it in himself only as in another, because he avenges in himself only insofar as the Lawgiver entrusts him with avenging this accused person. It is accidental that the person entrusted to act as the judge’s minister is this accused person, since in the same way he acts according to the right reason of a minister toward the accused if that person were entirely distinct in person. Therefore this virtue, whose nature this act is², is contained under justice, insofar as justice is said generally of every virtue ordering toward another, or as it were toward another. Nor is it an obstacle that in this act he is ordered toward himself, because he is ordered toward himself only as toward another: that is, as the Judge’s minister toward the accused against the law, in which the Judge has entrusted authority to him.” So says the Doctor. By these words he signifies that when a penitent avenges a sin he has committed, he acts toward himself as though he were a distinct person: for when he prescribes and inflicts a penalty upon himself, he represents³ the person of the Judge; but when he suffers that penalty, he represents the accused, to whom the Judge prescribes a penalty to be paid.

YOU WILL SAY 1: Penance is a judgment by which the intellect dictates that a penalty must be undergone for sin, so that insofar as the sinner glorified himself in delights, he ought to undergo just so much torment and grief. But this judgment is an act of the intellect, not of the will. Therefore Penance resides in the intellect rather than in the will. — I distinguish the major premise: it is such⁴ a judgment presuppositively, I grant; formally and entitatively, I deny. Indeed, I admit that to exercise true Penance it is required beforehand that the intellect know the malice and gravity of sin, insofar as it dictates a penalty to be paid in proportion; for Deuteronomy 25 says: According to the measure of the sin shall the measure of the blows be. But the formal character of Penance does not consist in this dictation. Beyond it, the will must command vengeance for sin through sorrow of spirit, contrition of heart, and mortification of the body; and this command is precisely where the formal character of Penance chiefly consists.

YOU WILL SAY 2: Penance is ordered to wash away every sin. But it cannot wash away and expel sin unless it is in the subject in which sin resides; for it cannot expel sin except insofar as it is contrary to it. A virtue habit and a vice, like other contraries, are not considered opposed and incompatible except with respect to the same subject in which they can inhere. Therefore, for Penance to expel sin, it must be in the same subject in which sin resides. But sin is in every faculty, since one sins through the operation of any faculty. Therefore Penance must reside in every faculty. — I distinguish the major premise: it must wash away and expel sin formally, I deny; effectively, I grant. I likewise distinguish the minor premise: it cannot wash away sin formally unless it is in the subject in which sin resides, I grant; it cannot wash it away effectively and imperatively, I deny. Hence the inference must be denied. For since the formal character of Penance consists in willing to avenge sin, and this willing, by reason of the will’s dominion over the other faculties of soul and body, extends to them all and directs its command toward them, it is therefore not necessary that it exist formally in those faculties. It is enough that it reside in the will, which is the ruler and regulator of the other faculties. Add that sin does not exist formally in any faculty other than the will; for every sin is sin precisely insofar as it is free.

Second conclusion. — PENANCE COULD EXIST IN THE STATE OF INNOCENCE, AND IN ANGELS AND THE BLESSED, AT LEAST ACCORDING TO SOME ASPECT OF ITS RATIONALE; BUT PROPERLY AND FORMALLY IT EXISTS IN SINNING PENITENTS AFTER THE FALL. This is the Doctor’s position with respect to all its parts.

He explains the first part in d. 11, q. 2, n. 19, where, speaking of the angels and our first parents in the state of innocence, after saying, “To the third argument one may reply in two ways. First, since virtue is a supplement in us for natural defect (whence some do not posit moral virtues in angels), and since they would not then have been in a nature such as ours now, they would not then have needed all the virtues that we need now. This is especially so of virtues that have not the good as their object but evil, such as Penance; for in that state there would not have been that evil, just as perhaps there would not then have been Patience, since there would have been no matter for patience,” he adds another view: “Alternatively, one may say that Penance is a habit inclining one readily to avenge the accused in oneself, and that ‘in oneself’ is material, since the formal rationale of the virtue would be the same if one were entrusted to avenge another accused person. But the blessed and the innocent can have a habit of readily avenging another accused person; therefore they can have it with respect to themselves as well, if guilt were present. And so it may be granted that this virtue remains in the state of innocence and in beatitude.” Here, as is plainly evident, the Doctor presents both views as probable. Likewise, in d. 3, q. 1, he discusses problematically whether true moral virtues are found in angels. “To the first,” he says, n. 16, “one may grant that if an angel were created in pure natural powers, not having moral virtues in the will, they could be generated in him from many right choices—not with respect to passions inhering in the sensitive appetite, nor even those that were, are, or could be present, but only with respect to such passions shown universally by the intellect. Once this presentation is posited, and the intellect has dictated what would be chosen if it were possible for them to have those passions, his will, consonant with such a dictate, could acquire a right moral habit from many choices.” So says the Doctor, clearly indicating that Penance, like the other moral virtues, can concern an object not only that exists, existed, will exist, or can exist, but also an object proper to those virtues considered universally. Hence Penance, insofar as it inclines the will to avenge sin universally, abstracting from whether it was committed by one’s own person or another’s, could have existed not only in angels but also in Adam in the state of innocence. I add that Penance could truly and properly have been found in the state of innocence. For since Adam could sin venially in that state, as the Doctor teaches in In II Sent., d. 21, q. 1, n. 73, it is clear that Adam could repent of that venial sin and take vengeance for it, as the Doctor indicates plainly enough in the same place. In replying to the second opposing argument, which concerned excluding punishment from that happy state and consequently excluding every venial sin as well, he says: A punishment other than death may correspond to a venial sin, for example, some displeasure or something of that kind. Or one may say that no punishment properly corresponds to it, but one who commits a venial sin is indebted to a more fervent act of the will than before, whose fervor would consume the venial sin. Nor would it have been incompatible with Adam’s innocence to have the punishment due for a venial sin in addition to death.

YOU WILL SAY: Sacred Scripture, the Holy Fathers, and the Councils, whenever they speak of Penance, always understand by it vengeance for one’s own sin, or detestation and sorrow for sin committed together with a purpose of not sinning again. Therefore the virtue of Penance cannot exist in those in whom there is no sin; and consequently it could not have existed in angels or in Adam in the state of innocence. — I answer: that is indeed true, because they speak of Penance insofar as it is in fact a necessary disposition for the remission of sins, and not as some moral virtue inclining the will to bring about equality between punishment and guilt, in the sense in which the Doctor uses it in his second reply. In this sense Penance could also have existed in the will of the Blessed Virgin, indeed of Christ our Lord, concerning sin shown universally by the intellect. Once this presentation is posited together with the intellect’s dictate concerning what would be chosen, on the hypothesis that that sin were possible, a will also consonant with such a dictate could have repeatedly chosen vengeance for sin. From these many choices it could acquire a right moral habit of the virtue of Penance, by which the will would be inclined to bring about equality between punishment and guilt, on the supposition that the guilt itself were admitted. Hence, although the will of Christ and of the Blessed Virgin was impeccable, and consequently they could not have an absolute act of avenging sin in themselves, they could nevertheless have had a conditional act, saying: If I had sinned, I would avenge sin in myself. Since those acts, insofar as they are elicited absolutely by us, are true and perfect acts of Penance, and a perfect habit of Penance is generated in us from such acts, by similar reasoning a perfect habit could have been generated in Christ and in the Blessed Virgin from that conditional willing, since no reason for a difference is apparent.

I nevertheless admit that Penance, insofar as it signifies sorrow of spirit and detestation of sin committed, together with a purpose of not sinning again, as the Council of Trent describes it, sess. XIV, ch. 4, dividing it into contrition made perfect by charity and imperfect contrition, which is called attrition, can exist only in the will of a sinful human being. For only such a person can perform the precise act of this Penance, namely, willing to avenge a sin he has committed, with sorrow and laborious satisfaction, as well as a purpose of not sinning again. Consequently, the subject of attribution, or mediate subject, of the virtue of Penance, insofar as theologians commonly use the term, is only a sinful human being in the state of this life.