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

NOTE 1. It is certain that when the guilt of mortal sin is remitted through penance, the debt, or obligation, to undergo eternal punishment is also always remitted. For mortal guilt is never remitted in the ordinary way without sanctifying grace being infused, through which a person is justified. “Justification itself,” says the Council of Trent (sess. VI, ch. 7), “is not remission of sins alone, but also sanctification and the renewal of the inner person through the voluntary reception of grace and gifts; hence a person becomes just from being unjust, and a friend from being an enemy, so as to be an heir according to the hope of eternal life.” But it is repugnant, at least under the ordinary law, for anyone to be an heir of the heavenly kingdom and at the same time subject to eternal punishment; otherwise that person would at once be worthy of eternal life and eternal death. It is therefore equally repugnant that, when the guilt of mortal sin is remitted through penance, the debt of eternal punishment should remain in the justified person.

NOTE 2. A controversy arises between Catholics and heretics as to whether, when the guilt of both mortal and venial sin has been remitted through penance, some obligation to undergo temporal punishment remains. All Catholic Doctors affirm that it does, together with the Council of Trent, in the same place, ch. 14. There, after asserting that sinners can be justified again through penance—which the holy Fathers aptly called “the second plank after the shipwreck of lost grace”—the Council adds that those sins can be expiated by the satisfaction that must be undergone: “Not, indeed, for eternal punishment, which is remitted along with guilt either by the sacrament or by the desire for the sacrament; but for temporal punishment, which, as the sacred Scriptures teach, is not always wholly remitted, as it is in baptism, for those who, ungrateful for the grace of God they received, have grieved the Holy Spirit,” etc. The heretics of our time, however, defend the negative position, especially the Calvinists with their abominable leader, who, in bk. III of the Institutes, ch. 4, n. 25, having first stated the Catholic view that payment is due for remitted sins, impudently adds: “Such lies are set against the gratuitous remission of sins, which Scripture proclaims more clearly than anything else. For what is remission but a gift of sheer liberality? A creditor is not said to remit when a receipt certifies that the money has been paid to him; rather, he remits when, without any payment, he freely cancels the debt by his generosity. Why, then, is ‘freely’ added, unless to remove every notion of satisfaction? With what confidence, then, do they still set up their satisfactions, when they are struck down by so mighty a thunderbolt?”

NOTE 3. There are three opinions among the Doctors concerning the punishment due for venial sin. Some, with Alexander of Hales, Summa, part II, q. 121, memb. 9, hold that eternal punishment is due to it per se, but temporal punishment per accidens. Others, with the Angelic Doctor, q. 102, q. 87, a. 5, and the Seraphic Doctor, In II Sent., d. 12, a. 2, q. 2, affirm that temporal punishment is due per se, but eternal punishment per accidens, namely when someone dies with both mortal and venial sin; for then venial sin joined to mortal sin is punished forever, since there is no redemption in hell. But the Subtle Doctor, d. 21, n. 6, having refuted both preceding opinions, maintains that eternal punishment is due to venial sin neither per se nor per accidens. Two points, then, must be established here: first, that once the debt of guilt is remitted, temporal punishment generally still remains to be paid through satisfaction; second, that venial sin is not to be punished with eternal punishment.

First conclusion. — WHEN THE DEBT OF GUILT FOR BOTH MORTAL AND VENIAL SIN IS REMITTED THROUGH PENANCE, THE PENITENT VERY OFTEN STILL OWES TEMPORAL PUNISHMENT.

This is a matter of faith, determined by the Council of Florence in the Decree of Eugene, where it is decreed that the third part of penance is satisfaction for sins according to the priest’s judgment, chiefly made through prayers, fasts, and almsgiving; consequently, this presupposes that some punishment survives the remission of guilt. The Council of Trent defines it most clearly, sess. VI, can. 130¹: “If anyone says that, once the grace of justification has been received, the guilt is remitted and the debt of eternal punishment erased for every repentant sinner in such a way that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be paid, either in this age or in the future in purgatory, before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can be opened, let him be anathema.” Hence, sess. XIV, ch. 8: “The holy Synod declares it wholly false and alien to the word of God that guilt is never remitted by the Lord without the whole punishment also being forgiven: for clear and striking examples are found in the sacred Scriptures by which, beyond divine Tradition, this error is most plainly refuted.” These divine oracles confirming this truth are drawn chiefly from Exodus 32, where God remits the sin of the Israelites who had fallen into worship of the golden calf, at Moses’ prayers. For it is said there: “The Lord was appeased, and did not do the evil he had spoken against his people.” Nevertheless, it is also said there that God reserved a punishment to inflict on that people for the offense; for it continues: “On the day of vengeance I will visit this sin upon them”; and, “The Lord struck the people for the guilt of the calf which Aaron had made.” — Likewise, in Numbers 13 and 14, God spared those same Israelites, who had fallen into the sin of murmuring, at Moses’ intercession; for he said, “I have forgiven them according to your word.” Yet vengeance was reserved for all who had come out of Egypt, for it continues: “Nevertheless, all the men who saw my majesty and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, and who have now tested me ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall not see the land I swore to their fathers; none of those who have reviled me shall see it.” Hence Psalm 94: “To whom I swore in my anger: They shall not enter my rest.” The same punishment is decreed there, in ch. 20, against Moses and Aaron for their sin at the waters of contradiction. For we read: “Because you did not believe me, to sanctify me before the children of Israel, you shall not lead these peoples into the land I will give them.” And below: “Let Aaron go to his people; for he shall not enter the land I gave the children of Israel, because he was unbelieving toward my word at the waters of contradiction.” His death is described there immediately afterward. To Moses, in Deuteronomy 32, God says: “Go up this mountain of Abarim, that is, of crossings, to Mount Nebo … and when you have climbed it, you shall join your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people: because you transgressed against me … at the waters of contradiction in the wilderness of Sin, and you did not sanctify me among the children of Israel. You shall see the land, but you shall not enter it, the land I will give the children of Israel.” Yet it is certain that Moses and Aaron obtained pardon for that sin. “Far be it,” says Augustine, Contra Faustum, bk. XVI, ch. 16, “that we should believe Moses to have been alienated from God, since he was deemed worthy to stand with Saint Elijah beside Christ in his glory.” — The same truth is evident from 2 Kings, ch. 12, where God remits to the penitent David the sin of adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah. For when David said to the prophet Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord,” Nathan immediately replied, “The Lord has also taken away your sin; you shall not die.” By these words God undoubtedly remitted the whole guilt of the sin. Hence St. Ambrose, in his First Apology for David, ch. 2, says: “The Lord was moved by the pain of his inmost feeling, so that Nathan said: ‘As you have repented, the Lord has taken away your sin.’ The immediacy of the pardon therefore revealed the depth of the king’s penance, which had carried off the offense of so great an error.” Nevertheless, David paid the temporal punishment for these crimes through the death of the son conceived in adultery; for Nathan says there: “Nevertheless, because you have caused the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, because of this word the son born to you shall die.” By these words he signifies that David was punished not merely so that he might take care in the future, or to terrify others, or to exercise virtue and patience, as the heretics invent, but because of the sin and the scandal given. To inflict punishment on a sinner because he has sinned is properly to punish the sin, not merely to inflict medicinal punishments. Hence St. Augustine says in Psalm 50: “You have loved truth: that is, you have not left unpunished even those whose sins you forgive.”

To blunt these divine testimonies, Calvin replies in nn. 31 and 32 that God does sometimes, after remitting the debt of guilt, inflict punishment on a justified sinner, not in vengeance but for correction. For, he says, one must distinguish two kinds of judgment: one of vengeance, the other of chastisement. “Moreover,” he says, “God is to be understood as avenging his enemies by a judgment of vengeance in such a way that he exercises his anger against them, confounds them, scatters them, and reduces them to nothing. Let that, then, be properly called God’s vengeance, where punishment is joined with his indignation. In a judgment of chastisement he does not rage in this way or become angry; nor does he avenge so as to destroy or hurl a thunderbolt to ruin. Hence it is not properly a penalty or vengeance, but correction and admonition. One belongs to a judge, the other to a father. For when a judge punishes a criminal, he takes action against the offense itself and exacts a penalty for the crime itself. When a father corrects his son more severely, he does not do so to avenge or punish him, but rather to teach him and make him more cautious in the future. Chrysostom somewhere uses a somewhat different comparison, which comes to the same thing: ‘A son is beaten, and a servant is beaten too; but the latter is punished as a slave because he has sinned, while the former is chastised as a free person and a son in need of discipline. For him the correction serves as a test and amendment; for the other it means blows and penalties.’ To hold this familiar point briefly and plainly, let this be the first distinction between the two: wherever punishment is for vengeance, there the curse and anger of God are manifested, which he always restrains from the faithful. Chastisement, by contrast, is both God’s blessing and a sign of his love, as Scripture teaches. This distinction is often marked sufficiently by the word of God. For whatever afflictions the wicked suffer in this present life are depicted for us as a sort of vestibule of hell, from which they already glimpse their eternal damnation from afar; and so far are they from being corrected by them or gaining any fruit, that such foretokens prepare them for the most terrible Gehenna that awaits them at last.” — But this reply of Calvin’s is mere evasion and deception. How perversely and improperly he interprets divine Scripture is evident from the divine oracles cited above, which plainly signify that God inflicts blows and calamities on people already restored to grace in vengeance and retribution for their remitted crimes, not merely for correction and the exercise of patience. No reason for this truth can be given a priori, since it depends solely on God’s ordination: just as he always freely remits eternal punishment together with mortal guilt, so, if he wished, he could always remit every punishment. The holy Fathers nevertheless offer several fitting reasons for this divine ordinance. First, that the gravity of sin might become more evident, and that the sinner might be deterred from offending by fear of the punishment to be undergone. St. Augustine supplies this reason in Tractate 124 on John, saying: “Lest the sin be thought small if its punishment ended along with it, he willed the punishment to last longer than the sin; for he holds back temporally in punishment one whom guilt no longer holds liable to damnation.” — Second, that the sinner might pay the satisfaction due to God and understand how kindly God had pardoned eternal punishment. St. Augustine explains this clearly in Contra Faustum, bk. XXII, ch. 67, where he says: “When David, corrected by the prophet, said, ‘I have sinned,’ he immediately deserved to hear the further word that he had received pardon. To what end, unless for eternal salvation? For the discipline of a father’s rod was not omitted in him, according to God’s threat: so that, having confessed, he might be freed forever, and, having been afflicted, might be punished temporally. It was no slight strength of faith, nor a small indication of a gentle and obedient spirit, that, when he had heard from the prophet that God had forgiven him, and yet what God had threatened had duly come to pass, he did not say that he had been deceived by the prophet’s lie, nor murmur against God as if he had declared a false indulgence of sins. For that deeply holy man understood, lifting his soul not against God but to God, how worthy his sins were of eternal punishments, for which he was being chastened by temporal corrections, unless God were merciful to one who confessed and did penance. He saw that pardon remained toward him, while discipline was not neglected.” — Third, to restrain the license to sin, which would certainly be much greater if every punishment were remitted together with guilt. St. Chrysostom gives this reason in his Homily on Penance, saying: “Lest sinners who remain unpunished become worse, he did not remit our penalty, but clearly saw that not being punished is no less harmful than the sins themselves; and for this reason he imposes a penalty.” — Fourth, it was fitting that we undo, by contrary acts, the vicious habits acquired through evil living; this could not be done more effectively than by undergoing temporal punishment. Hence St. Augustine, On the Merits and Remission of Sins, bk. II, ch. 34, says: “For this reason Adam, expelled from Paradise, dwelt opposite Eden, that is, opposite the seat of delights, to signify that the flesh of sin, which did not keep obedience amid delights, had to be trained through labors contrary to delights.” — Finally, it was fitting that there be a certain proportion between the members and the head. Since Christ therefore underwent the harshest temporal torments for our sins, it was fitting by the same reasoning that we should suffer some punishment for such sins.

The Council of Trent explains all these reasons most eloquently, sess. XIV, ch. 8, in these words: “Indeed, the order of divine justice also seems to require that those who sinned through ignorance before baptism be received into grace by God in one way, but those who, once freed from the slavery of sin and the devil, have not feared knowingly to violate God’s temple and grieve the Holy Spirit given to them, be received in another. And it befits divine clemency that sins not be forgiven us without any satisfaction, lest, seizing the occasion, we regard sins as lighter and, injuring and insulting the Holy Spirit, fall into graver ones, storing up wrath for ourselves on the day of wrath.” For these satisfactory punishments undoubtedly greatly turn us away from sin, “and, as it were, restrain us with a certain bridle, making penitents more cautious and watchful in the future”; they also heal the remnants of sins and remove, by contrary acts of virtue, vicious habits acquired through evil living. … “To this is added that, while suffering in satisfaction for our sins, we are made conformable to Jesus Christ, who made satisfaction for our sins, from whom all our sufficiency comes; and from this we also have a most certain pledge that, if we suffer with him, we shall also be glorified with him.”

HERETICS OBJECT 1: God testifies in Ezekiel 18 that he will utterly forget the sins of the one who has done penance: “I will remember none of his iniquities.” Likewise, in ch. 33: “The wickedness of the wicked shall not harm him on whatever day he turns from his wickedness.” The Apostle agrees in Romans 8: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” But God would undoubtedly remember the sinner’s iniquities, his wickedness would harm him, and some condemnation would remain for those in Christ Jesus, if, after guilt were remitted, temporal punishment still remained to be paid. Therefore, once the debt of guilt is remitted, no debt of punishment remains to be paid. — I deny the minor premise; and concerning the first two passages of Scripture I say that, for God to forget the sinner’s iniquities, it is enough that he receive him into his friendship and forgive him eternal punishment. In this way God forgot Adam’s rebellion, since Wisdom 10 says that he led him out of his offense, and yet reserved the punishment of death for him and his descendants. In Numbers 10² he absolved Miriam, Moses’ sister, at his prayer, from the sin of murmuring, and yet ordered her to be separated outside the camp for seven days. Likewise, in 3 Kings 13 the man of God, or prophet of the Lord, was killed by a lion because of disobedience; nevertheless, he seems to have obtained pardon for his sin beforehand through repentance. For, as proof of his holiness, the lion touched neither his corpse nor the donkey, and another prophet, an old man who had foretold this death to him at Bethel, carried his body to his own tomb, mourned him, and wished to be buried beside him when he died. I answer secondly: in those oracles the prophet is making a comparison between the just and the wicked with respect to eternal life. Their meaning, then, is that just as, if a just person turns away from his justice, it will not profit him toward eternal happiness—so that God seems to forget him—so the sinner, when he does penance, since through the restoration of habitual grace he obtains a right to eternal life, seems not to be remembered by God for that iniquity, nor will it harm him with respect to attaining beatitude, although he remains liable to temporal punishment to be paid. — As to the Apostle’s text, I say that although, after guilt and the debt of eternal punishment have been remitted through penance, the debt of temporal punishment sometimes remains, there is nevertheless no condemnation in the justified. Temporal punishment to be paid is so far from ordering them to damnation that it instead turns them away from it, since it restrains license to sin and makes the sinner more cautious, lest he rush headlong into sin again.

Calvin presses the point by adducing other passages of Scripture, in which God is said no longer to take account of sins once remitted, but to cast them behind his back, in Isaiah 38³; to blot them out like a cloud: “I have blotted out your iniquities like a cloud, and your sins like a mist”; to cast and sink them into the depths of the sea, as in Micah 7: “He will take away our iniquities and cast all our sins into the depths of the sea”; and finally not to impute them and to cover them, as in Psalm 31: “Blessed are those whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin.” Hence he concludes: if God punishes sins, he imputes them; if he avenges them, he remembers them; if he summons them to judgment, he has not covered them; if he examines them, he has not cast them behind his back; if he looks upon them, he has not blotted them out like a mist; if he sifts them, he has not cast them into the depths of the sea. “And in this way,” he says, “Augustine interprets the matter in Psalm 52, writing: ‘If God has covered sins, he did not wish to notice them; if he did not wish to notice them, he did not wish to take action against them; if he did not wish to take action against them, he did not wish to punish them, did not wish to acknowledge them, but preferred to ignore them.’” — I answer: he appeals to these texts improperly and foolishly in defense of his error. For by these and similar oracles God signifies nothing other than that he remits sins upon seeing penance in such a way that he no longer brings them back to mind or view for the sinner’s damnation, nor as a debt of guilt and eternal punishment. We readily acknowledge this.

HERETICS OBJECT 2: Sins are remitted in penance through the power and merit of Christ’s Passion, as the Apostle testifies in Romans 3, saying: “God set him forth as an expiation through faith in his blood, to demonstrate his justice because of the remission of former sins.” But in his Passion Christ made the fullest satisfaction for all sins, not only for the debt of guilt but also for every punishment due for sin. Therefore every satisfaction of ours is superfluous. For Calvin says in n. 30: “What, I ask, would Christ have accomplished for us if punishment were still exacted for sins? For when we say that he bore all our sins in his body upon the tree, we mean nothing other than that he died under the punishment and vengeance due for our sins.” — I distinguish the minor premise: he made the fullest satisfaction, and a sufficient remission of all sins with respect to guilt and punishment, in dignity and power, I grant: for Christ’s merit suffices to discharge the whole debt of every sin. With respect to its application and the manner in which a person shares in it, I distinguish further: he made the fullest satisfaction with respect to the manner of application on certain occasions, as happens through baptism and martyrdom, I grant; for the baptized person wholly shares in the power of Christ’s Passion, dying with Christ to sins through water and the Spirit, and thereby being reborn to eternal life. The same should be said of martyrdom, with due proportion. But that he always made it in this way through the ordinary application of that Passion, as occurs in penance, I deny: Christ indeed made satisfaction for us as a universal cause to be applied to each person through that person’s own cooperation, and in proportion to that cooperation, especially in penance. The manner proportionate to a free nature is this: just as a person freely and by his own will sinned in committing an actual sin, so he should freely apply to himself the cause of satisfaction and remission of sin.

HERETICS OBJECT 3: When the cause is removed, the effect is removed. But the debt of guilt is the cause of the debt of punishment; for someone is worthy of punishment because he has committed a sin. Therefore, when the debt of guilt is removed through penance, the debt of punishment is also taken away. — I distinguish the major premise: if that cause is truly the cause of a thing’s being and continuing to exist, as form is with respect to a composite—for example, the rational soul with respect to a human being—I grant; if it is only a cause of its coming to be, as a builder is the cause of a building, I deny. And, once the minor premise is distinguished in the same way, I deny the inference: for the debt of guilt is indeed the cause of the debt of punishment coming to be, but not of its continuing to exist. Hence a moral punishment can remain after the guilt is removed, just as a building stands after its builder has died.

HERETICS OBJECT 4: All the punishments the just suffer are exercises of virtue and their contests, not satisfactions for sin, as St. Augustine teaches in Psalm 138: “May he scourge us in these infirmities and deliver us. All this misery of the human race, in which the world groans, is a medicinal pain, not a penal sentence.” And in On the Merits and Remission of Sins, bk. II, after saying in ch. 33 that people cleansed of sins are nonetheless, by God’s sentence, condemned to punishment, which he proves from the example of Adam eating bread by the sweat of his brow and Eve bearing her children in pain, he adds in ch. 34: “Before remission, these are punishments for sins; after remission, however, they are contests and exercises of the just.” Therefore the punishments the just must pay after sins are remitted are not satisfactory, but only medicinal or meritorious of eternal life. — I deny the inference, and concerning the antecedent I say that although St. Augustine does not mention satisfaction there, elsewhere he teaches repeatedly that the punishments endured are not only exercises of the just but also satisfactions. Thus in City of God, bk. XIII, ch. 6, he says: “Whatever it is in the dying that, with a grave sensation, admits sensation, when it is piously and faithfully endured, increases the merit of patience but does not remove the name of punishment. Thus, since by the perpetual succession from the first human being the death of one who is born is undoubtedly a punishment, if it is borne for piety and justice it becomes the glory of one reborn; and though death is the retribution for sin, it sometimes obtains that nothing be retributed to sin.” He says that the miseries and calamities of the human race are rather medicinal pain than a penal sentence because the pain of medicine tends toward the patient’s good, whereas a penal sentence imposed by a judge tends toward the evil and loss of the condemned. Those calamities are therefore called medicinal because through them a person, making satisfaction to God, prepares a way to eternal happiness; consequently, they turn to the patient’s good, not harm.

YOU WILL PRESS: Those calamities cannot be satisfactory unless they are inflicted under the aspect of punishment. But that is not so except materially, since God assigns them both to sinners and to the justified and innocent. Yet calamities, with respect to the innocent and those in whom both the debt of punishment and the debt of guilt have been remitted, cannot have the character of punishment or penalty. Therefore, etc. — I distinguish the minor premise: if those calamities are not inflicted because of guilt, I grant; if they are, I deny. It is certain, however, that God prescribes such calamities for justified people because of their remitted sins, as Calvin himself also admits when he applies to the just Psalm 89: “I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with scourges.” But correction, rods, and scourges signify punishments properly so called; consequently, whether he wishes it or not, Calvin is compelled to admit that punishment, retribution, and vengeance still survive the remission of sin.

Second conclusion. — ETERNAL PUNISHMENT IS DUE TO VENIAL SIN NEITHER PER SE NOR PER ACCIDENS. This is the Doctor’s position in the passage cited above, n. 6, where he says: “I say, then, that to venial sin, whether it is punished here, in hell, or elsewhere, only temporal punishment is due, neither per se nor per accidens; for in itself it is an offense of such a kind that in itself it is punished by a sufficient temporal punishment. Nor is it unreasonable for the punishment due for venial sin to have an end in hell: for a person who truly repents, first fulfills a part of the penance imposed, then relapses into mortal sin before completing it all, and dies in that mortal sin, will pay in hell the remaining part of the penance—but only temporal punishment. For since, in the earlier remission of sins, the debt of eternal punishment is changed into a debt of temporal punishment, that person is never a debtor for those sins to anything but temporal punishment; and consequently, once the whole punishment has been paid, he will be free of them. Yet there is no redemption in hell for that sin, namely the one for which he is damned, because the debt of eternal punishment for that sin was never changed into a debt of temporal punishment. Therefore that debt always remains, since that punishment can never be paid in full.” By these words the Doctor consistently affirms that the punishment due for venial sin is not eternal, either per se or per accidens, but is fixed by its own nature and ends when the term of suffering, or of suffering enough, has been completed. He proves this from the axiom most widely accepted among theologians, namely that “God always punishes less than is deserved and rewards beyond what is deserved.” But by its nature only temporal punishment is due for venial sin, because, as he says in q. 3, eternal punishment is incompatible with charity. For if the obligation to undergo eternal punishment could coexist with charity, someone would at once be worthy of eternal life and eternal punishment, since everyone who has charity is worthy of eternal life. This is plainly contradictory: no one can be liable to punishment at the very instant at which he is destined for glory, since then glory and some punishment could coexist. Yet venial sin coexists with charity, not only when it is erased after the act, but also when it is actually committed, as the Doctor proves in n. 4: “For,” he says, “mortal sin exceeds every venial sin immeasurably in the character of malice. For even if there were infinitely many venial sins, they would not equal one mortal sin in the character of offense, since they would not all turn a person away from the last end as one mortal sin does. Consequently, the punishment that justice assigns to mortal sin immeasurably and infinitely exceeds the punishment due for venial sin—not in intensity, since any punishment exceeds or is exceeded by another only to a finite degree in intensity. Therefore it exceeds it in extent and duration; and consequently eternal punishment is not due for venial sin.” The Doctor confirms this in n. 5: “Suppose that God simply punished with strict rigor up to the measure deserved: it would be wholly unjust to inflict eternal punishment for what in itself deserves temporal punishment. But only temporal punishment is due for venial sin, since its malice is much less than that of mortal sin and it must consequently be punished with a lesser penalty. Nor does it matter that it is joined to mortal sin. However much it is joined to another sin, the Doctor says, this does not make it exceed infinitely in gravity or cease to be the kind of guilt that venial sin is. Therefore punishment that exceeds it infinitely does not justly correspond to it either.”

The Thomists, with Cajetan, reply that no punishment other than temporal punishment is due to venial sin per se, but that eternal punishment is due per accidens because of the condition of the subject and its union with mortal sin. For, they say, venial sin is not judged separately when someone is condemned, but together with mortal sin, to which eternal punishment is due. Therefore, since the subject, namely the condemned person, is destined to undergo eternal punishment on account of mortal sin, that person must undergo the same punishment on account of venial sin as well. — But against this: the worthiness for punishment, or the debt of punishment, arises not from the condition of the subject but only from transgressing a law and precept. Therefore, venial sin in itself does not merit eternal punishment because of the subject’s state and condition.

They reply secondly that eternal punishment is indeed not due to venial sin with respect to the subject considered alone, but that it is due insofar as the sin is in a subject who also has mortal sin; and consequently venial sin merits eternal punishment through its union and accompaniment with mortal sin. — But Hiquaeus makes a subtle objection against this: “Nothing,” he says, “imposes a new debt of punishment unless it aggravates the sin precisely as sin, since punishment and its debt are measured according to sin insofar as it is sin. But the mortal sin on account of which someone is condemned to hell and perpetual punishment is neither a circumstance of the venial sin nor does it contribute in any way to its malice. Therefore,” etc. The minor premise is proved: mortal sin can be separate from venial sin, and can precede or follow it by many years without any order of one to the other in operation, knowledge, or intention, as is obvious. But nothing aggravates malice except what is a circumstance of the act, the matter, or the manner of acting. Therefore punishment is not aggravated either. Yet by the law’s ordinance and by its nature only temporal and terminable punishment is due for venial sin. Therefore, etc. He confirms this: the temporal punishment due for venial sin in this life is not increased by its conjunction with mortal sin in this life; therefore the same punishment is not increased in the next life by association with that sin. The inference is clear by parity; the antecedent is beyond dispute. He confirms it a second time: the punishment for venial sin does not increase in intensity in hell; therefore it does not increase in duration either. The inference is clear, since no reason appears why it should increase more extensively than intensively, whether considered in relation to the subject or in relation to God’s vindictive justice, which is expressed in law. For just as, by justice, the punishment due for venial sin is light in intensity compared with the punishment for mortal sin (as the guilt itself is light), so that any excess beyond the established limit would be severe and unjust, so the same punishment also has a limit in duration, such that, viewed according to the law and in itself, it is temporal. Therefore its conjunction with mortal sin in hell does not extend it beyond that limit of duration, just as it does not increase its intensity beyond the proportionate limit.

So Hiquaeus.

YOU WILL OBJECT 1. Every sin is an offense against God; but every offense against God merits eternal punishment. First because every offense against God merits annihilation; therefore it is all the more worthy of eternal punishment, which is a much lesser evil than annihilation. Second because sin committed against God offends an infinite person; consequently, it has infinite malice and is therefore worthy of eternal punishment. — I deny the minor premise, as well as its two proofs, which are altogether false. The first fails because an offense against God merits annihilation only insofar as it turns a person away from the last end; for whoever removes himself from God, the source of all beings, deserves to pass into nothingness. But this turning away does not occur through venial sin, only through mortal sin. The second proof fails as well: as we said when treating the gravity of sin, even mortal sin itself does not have infinite malice. For worthiness or malice is not taken absolutely from the person offended or from the object toward which the act is directed, with respect to its quality alone, but also from the manner in which the act reaches its object. That manner, like the power from which sinful acts are elicited, is finite.

YOU WILL OBJECT 2. So long as guilt remains, punishment always remains, because the debt of punishment is inseparably connected with guilt, since it is established against the disorder of guilt. But the debt of guilt always remains in hell. Therefore punishment to be paid also remains. — I deny the major premise, and distinguish its proof: punishment is inseparably connected with guilt in coming to be, so that punishment must be inflicted on no one in retribution unless on account of a sin committed, I grant; in the state of being, I deny. For punishment to be paid does not always presuppose guilt presently existing in the one who pays the punishment. For subjects and children are often punished for the sins of rulers and parents, although they themselves are entirely innocent. Moreover, even after sins have been remitted through the virtue or sacrament of penance, temporal punishment is often due as satisfaction. Therefore punishment and guilt are not connected in the state of being, either by the nature of the thing or by the requirement of punitive justice, if the punishment is terminable by law, as is temporal punishment due for remitted mortal sin and also for venial sin that persists.

YOU WILL PRESS: The damned not only persist in a past venial sin in its completed state, but also newly take pleasure in it, and thus continually sin in act. Therefore they continually owe punishment. The inference is proved by the authority of St. Fulgentius, On the Faith to Peter, bk. I, where, speaking of the damnation of demons, he says: “That part of the angels, which had been blessed by the sole good, departed in wholly voluntary aversion; by the judgment of supernal equity it found the beginning of its damnation in the very aversion of its will, so that beginning already to be punished was nothing other than being deprived of love for that beatifying good. God ordained that this should remain wholly in eternal punishment, and also prepared eternal fire for it; in it all those transgressing angels could never be without an evil will or without punishment. But while the evil of their unjust aversion remains in them, the eternal damnation of just retribution also remains.” By these words he signifies that the evil angels are punished continually because they have a continuously perverse will. — I answer first that it is not certain whether the damned take a new pleasure in past venial sin; for this seems morally impossible, especially if there are many sins, since amid those pressing punishments the intellect and will can scarcely attend to them. I say secondly that even if this pleasure remains, the damned person does not thereby merit a new punishment, as the Doctor teaches in In II Sent., d. 7, q. 1, where he says: “Just as the substantial reward is fixed at the first instant in which an angel is blessed, and does not increase thereafter, because the good acts that follow are not meritorious, although they are good, so also, in the case of a condemned angel, a definite punishment is determined at the first instant of his damnation, and it does not increase in intensity. Yet his evil acts are not unpunished, just as the good acts of a good angel will not go unrewarded. Those good acts are included in the first act, because they proceed from the perfection of the beatific act; but as regards the accidental reward they may have, each act is its own reward. In the same way, those evil acts that a condemned person elicits are included in the first punishment, determined for him with certainty; and each act, which could have its own accidental punishment, has the person himself as its punishment. ‘You commanded, Lord,’ Augustine says in the Confessions, ‘and so it is, that every sinner is a punishment to himself’ (the genuine text is: ‘You commanded, and so it is, that every disordered soul is a punishment to itself,’ Confessions, bk. I, ch. 12). For the chief and greatest punishment is deprivation of the greatest good, which is formally present in an evil act, the malice of guilt turning the sinner away from God (he is speaking of a mortal act). Their punishment therefore increases infinitely in extent, as does their malice, but neither increases in intensity.”

“And if you OBJECT that a second evil act is demeritorious, and therefore a punishment of its own corresponds to it: — I answer that, even if it can be granted to be a fault, it is not properly demeritorious, because it is not elicited by a wayfarer, to whom alone it belongs to merit or demerit. Rather, it may be called more properly a condemning act, or an act of the condemned, just as, on the other side, the act of a blessed person, although acceptable to God, is not properly meritorious, but is better called a beatific act, an act of the blessed, or an act proceeding from beatitude.” Thus far the Doctor. Let it be so, then, that the damned continually sin, not only mortally but also venially through taking pleasure in past venial sins. I say that by this pleasure they do not merit any new punishment; rather, if one wishes, this pleasure is itself their punishment, and that punishment is eternal if the sin is eternal. But our assertion does not concern this punishment; it concerns only punishment distinct from the debt of guilt and inflicted on account of that debt. Such punishment cannot increase in the state of damnation, since acts elicited in that state, although evil, are not demeritorious.

YOU WILL OBJECT 3. There is no redemption in hell; therefore there is no payment of punishment either. — The Doctor distinguishes the antecedent, n. 6: with respect to the debt of eternal punishment for unremitted mortal sin, which has not been changed into a debt of temporal punishment, he grants it; for just as that debt always remains, so the punishment to be paid will never come to an end. With respect to the debt of temporal punishment to be paid for venial sin or remitted mortal sin, he denies it; for since God’s vindictive justice inflicts punishments proportioned to sins, he ought not to inflict eternal punishment for venial sin, for which only temporal punishment is due.

YOU WILL PRESS: Temporal punishment cannot be remitted unless satisfaction for it has been fully made; but in hell there is no satisfaction. Therefore cessation of the punishment due for sin is impossible as well. — I distinguish the minor premise: there is no reconciling satisfaction, I grant; there is no vindictive satisfaction, I deny. I acknowledge indeed that if satisfaction means the reconciliation of a person who has offended God with the God offended, by which the person is received into God’s friendship and grace, then it is true that no such satisfaction exists in hell, just as there is no remission or reconciliation of the damned person with God. There is, however, satisfaction with respect to vindictive justice, which requires equality between punishment and sin according to the prescription of the law and the will of God the lawgiver, who established that even in hell punishments should differ according to the difference of sins. This is gathered from Revelation 18: “As much as she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so much give her torment and mourning”; and also from Deuteronomy 17: “The measure of the offense shall be the measure of the blows.”

YOU WILL INSIST: Even punitive satisfaction is neither performed nor completed unless divine mercy intervenes and the merits of the Lord Christ are applied. But mercy does not intervene in hell, where only divine justice rages; nor do Christ’s merits avail there, where even vindictive satisfaction cannot exist. — I deny the major premise: these things are required only for reconciling satisfaction. For mercy does not intervene on the creditor’s part when the debtor pays him just what is owed. Nor does the Lord Christ offer his merits for vindictive satisfaction, but only for reconciling satisfaction: for he is the mediator and propitiator through whom God reconciled to himself the things in heaven and on earth, as St. Paul says in Romans 5 and Hebrews 10. Every reconciling satisfaction, then, is through Christ; rigorous satisfaction is not. The latter is the pure effect of justice and of the Law avenging sins, and satisfaction is made to it by undergoing punishment, which by its nature comes to an end—not through the intervention or regard of the Mediator or his works, but by the statute and agreement of the Lawgiver who so ordained it.