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

NOTE 1. The works that a human being can elicit in relation to the supernatural end fall into four different kinds. Some are living, arising from a vital principle, namely grace and charity. Others are dead: by their kind and proper object they are indeed good, but because they are performed by a person in the state of mortal sin, they lack every principle of spiritual life. Still others are deadly: by depriving the soul of grace, they inflict death upon it. For grace stands to the soul in relation to supernatural life as the soul stands to the body in relation to natural life. As St. Augustine says, Sermon 5, On the Words of the Lord: “As the soul is the life of the body, so God is the life of the soul; and as the body expires when it gives up the soul, so the soul expires when it loses God.” Finally, other works are called mortified. Though good in themselves, insofar as they were elicited by grace and charity, they are said to be mortified by a subsequent sin, because they are prevented from having the power and efficacy to advance people toward eternal life. They are called mortified by a metaphor drawn from the limbs of an animal body, which are said to be mortified when they are prevented from exercising their functions.

NOTE 2. Penance has two principal effects: the remission of sins and the revivification of merits. The first belongs to it directly and in itself; the second by concomitance and accidentally. For penance is in itself ordered to wiping away sins; once these are expunged and removed, works previously mortified revive and again have a right to the reward of eternal blessedness, due to them by justice as recompense. For when “the just man turns away from his justice and commits iniquities according to all the abominations that the wicked are accustomed to commit,” God says through Ezekiel, ch. 18, “all his righteous deeds that he had done will not be remembered; in the transgression by which he transgressed, and in the sin that he committed, in them he will die.” That is, the meritorious works he had previously performed will count for nothing before God in relation to the reward of grace and glory. Likewise, “when the wicked man turns away from his wickedness which he has committed and does judgment and justice, he will give life to his soul,” says the Lord there, v. 27. He gives life not only to the soul, but also to works previously mortified through salutary penance, as will be clear from what is said in the first conclusion.

NOTE 3. A person has a right to glory under two titles: the title of inheritance and the title of recompense. The title of inheritance is founded on sanctifying grace, through which we become partakers of the divine nature and receive adoption as sons: “If sons, then heirs, heirs indeed of God,” and so forth, says the Apostle. The title of recompense, however, is founded on good works done in grace and from grace, on the presupposition of God’s promise and his prior covenant, as the Council of Trent teaches, sess. VI, ch. 16: “Eternal life is to be proposed to those who work well to the end and hope in God both as grace mercifully promised to the sons of God through Jesus Christ and as a reward faithfully to be rendered, in accordance with God’s own promise, for their works and merits.” It should further be observed that a justified person merits by his good works not only an increase of glory but also an increase of grace, as the Council of Trent expressly defines, sess. VI, can. 32. The question, then, is whether one who revives through penance receives the same grace that was lost and a right to the same degrees of glory. Four principal opinions of authors arise in resolving this question. The first is that of Alexander of Hales, p. I, q. 57, and St. Bonaventure, In IV Sent., d. 11, a. 2, q. 1, followed by several more recent authors: grace lost through sin is restored by penance only according to the degree of the penitent’s contrition. Thus, if the act of contrition is most fervent, grace is restored in a greater degree; if that act is less fervent, lesser grace is granted. On this view, mortified works revive only in the sense that the same essential reward corresponding to the grace conferred through contrition is granted under several titles, namely in view of present contrition and antecedent merits; though one must allow an accidental reward, that is, greater joy on account of meritorious works elicited before the sin. The second opinion is that of Ockham, In IV Sent., q. 8, and of other Nominalists, who teach that by virtue of penance a person revives not only to the grace and glory corresponding to present contrition, but also to as many degrees of grace and to a right to as many degrees of glory as he would have had through his preceding merits had they not been mortified. The third is that of St. Thomas, III, q. 88, aa. 3 and 5, followed by several of his disciples, who assert that one rising from sin receives some new degree of grace and consequently a right to a new degree of essential glory on account of preceding merits, but does not receive all the grace he had before he sinned. The fourth opinion, finally, is that of the Doctor, d. 22, n. 9: mortified merits do indeed revive through penance with respect to the right to the same degree of glory due to them before sin, but not with respect to greater grace. Their revival is thus to the glory corresponding to the merits themselves, not to the glory corresponding to grace.

Three things, then, must be established here: first, that mortified works truly revive through penance; second, that they revive with respect to the essential glory due to them, but not with respect to accidental glory; third, that the same grace that was lost does not return.

First conclusion. — MERITORIOUS WORKS MORTIFIED BY SIN TRULY REVIVE THROUGH PENANCE. This is the common teaching among theologians, who regard this assertion as so certain that they consider its opposite erroneous.

This is proved first by the authority of Sacred Scripture, especially from Ezekiel 18, where God testifies: “If the wicked man does penance for all his sins that he has committed, and keeps all my precepts and does judgment and justice, he will surely live and not die. I will remember none of all the iniquities he has committed; he will live in the justice he has practiced.” And later: “Turn, and do penance for all your iniquities, and iniquity will not be your ruin.” But God would remember the iniquities, and iniquity would be the sinner’s ruin, if on their account he were deprived forever of the effect and fruit of his preceding merits. The same is proved by Cardinal Hugh from Jeremiah, ch. 2: “I remembered you, showing mercy to your youth and the love of your betrothal.” For what does it mean, he says, that God mercifully remembers our youth and love, except that he does not consign to oblivion our earlier works done in charity and mortified by sin? The same truth is suggested by Joel, ch. 2, where God says: “I will repay you for the years that the locust, the cankerworm, and the mildew consumed.” Commenting on this text, St. Ambrose writes: “Penance is an excellent thing, which restores all deficiencies to perfection.” All the other holy Fathers interpret this oracle in the same way, especially St. Jerome: God wished to signify that he would repay the recompense and reward of good works consumed by the locust, cankerworm, and mildew of sins. It is also proved from the Apostle in Galatians 3: “Have you suffered so many things in vain? If indeed in vain.” St. Jerome explains these words as follows: the person who, after enduring labors for Christ, falls into sin is said to have suffered in vain; but he does not lose those labors if he returns to his former faith and former devotion. And Anselm says: “You have suffered in vain if you persist in this error, but not in vain if you come to your senses.” Indeed, the Apostle confirms this truth more clearly in Hebrews 7¹, where he says: “We are confident of you, beloved, of better things and things nearer to salvation, even though we speak thus; for God is not unjust, that he should forget your work and the love you have shown in his name, in that you have ministered to the saints and still minister”—that is, to Christians in need. By these words the Apostle consoles the Hebrews, whom he had earlier frightened by saying, “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened and have fallen away to be renewed again to penance.” He consoles them, I say, by saying that God will act kindly toward them if they rise from sin through penance, since he will repay their earlier good works with the reward of eternal life. The Council of Trent also explains this, sess. VI, ch. 16, where it says: “For this reason these words of the Apostle are to be proposed to justified people, whether they have always preserved the grace received or have recovered it after losing it: ‘Abound in every good work, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord; for God is not unjust,’” and so forth. The Council thereby signifies that two classes of people must be admonished: one comprises those who have preserved grace, to whom the Apostle’s words in I Corinthians 15, “Abound in every good work,” are to be proposed in view of the promised reward for their labors; the other comprises those who have recovered lost grace, to whom the later passage from the Apostle in Hebrews applies.

The conclusion is also proved from the Council of Trent cited above, for after the quoted words it adds: “Nothing further is to be believed to be² lacking to justified people, so that they may be considered truly to have fully satisfied the divine Law, for the state of this life, by those works which are done in God, and to have truly merited eternal life, to be attained in its time, provided they die in grace.” The Council establishes the same in canon 32: “If anyone says that the justified person does not truly merit by the good works performed by him through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, an increase of grace, eternal life, and the attainment of eternal life itself, provided he dies in grace, as well as an increase of glory, let him be anathema.” By all this the Council signifies that three conditions are required for our works to be meritorious and for us to attain eternal life: namely, that they be the works of a justified person, performed through the grace and help of God, and that the one who performed them die in grace. Mortified merits possessed the first two conditions before sin; they obtain the third through penance, by which they receive the habit of sanctifying grace, in which a person can depart this life.

The conclusion is finally proved by an argument supplied by the Doctor, d. 22, n. 6, where he teaches that the revival of merits is a work of divine mercy, not only insofar as God freely grants effective help to do true penance, but also insofar as God willed always to repay them with a reward unless the recipient is indisposed by a new fault. From this one may argue as follows: a cause that lacks one of its effects precisely because of an impediment ought to obtain that effect as soon as the impediment is removed; thus a stone suspended by a rope, preventing it from falling to the ground, immediately falls to it as soon as the rope is removed. But merits are prevented by a subsequent sin, as by an impediment, from obtaining their effect, namely, having a right to eternal life. Therefore, when that impediment is removed through penance, they ought to revive to the very right to glory they formerly possessed.

The Doctor confirms this, n. 7: “A good example pertinent to the matter is found among jurists: someone retains a right, although an action does not remain to him or is not available to him because of some impediment. So a person with good merits in divine acceptance, though they have been mortified by mortal sin, retains the whole right corresponding to those merits to eternal life; but the action does not remain while he is an enemy. If he remains an enemy forever, that action lapses. When, however, the enmity contracted through a new mortal sin ceases, no new right returns, but the action is available under the former right.” In these words the Doctor admirably explains how a sinner, although God’s enemy, nevertheless still has, by reason of meritorious works previously elicited, some right to the blessedness due to those good works as recompense, even if he cannot legally demand it from God while he remains in sin, since in that state he is unworthy of it as God’s enemy. But when he is reconciled to God through penance, he then begins, by reason of the prior right, to have an action—that is, a right to claim that eternal recompense.

YOU WILL SAY 1: What wholly perishes and dies cannot revive; but good works wholly perish and are destroyed through a subsequent sin; therefore they cannot revive through penance. The major premise is established by an argument from parity. For sins remitted through penance do not return precisely because they are wholly extinguished and destroyed by it, at least with respect to the debt of guilt. The minor premise is also established: for by the same reasoning that God said in Ezekiel 18, v. 17³, “When the wicked man turns away from his wickedness which he has committed and does judgment and justice, he will give life to his soul,” he also affirms there, v. 17⁴: “When the just man turns away from his justice and commits iniquities according to all the abominations the wicked are accustomed to commit, will he live? None of all his righteous deeds that he had done will be remembered; in the transgression by which he transgressed and in the sin he committed, in them he will die.” Just as sins once remitted through penance do not return, so good works once killed by a subsequent sin cannot later revive. — I deny the major premise, as well as the major premises of the proof; the Doctor gives the reason for the difference in n. 7. First, on the side of divine mercy: “Good works,” he says, “always live in the acceptance of the superabundant divine goodness and mercy, and a reward would always be rendered to them unless the recipient were indisposed by a new fault. The case is otherwise with evil deeds and sins, which are completely removed, so that they remain neither in the divine intellect nor in the divine will in relation to vengeance, once they have been expunged through penance.” Second, he finds the same difference on the side of divine justice: “Sin is remitted only when at least the debt of eternal punishment is commuted into a debt of temporal punishment. Once this commutation is made, ordinarily that fault is never remitted unless that punishment is paid, either in itself or by an equivalent punishment. Consequently, when mortal sin itself has first been remitted and its punishment paid, no right remains by which any punishment for that sin could be exacted from the person. It is otherwise with meritorious works. For after a merit worthy of eternal life, that worthiness for an eternal good is never commuted, according to justice, into a temporal good. Therefore that right never expires until the eternal good has been paid; but that is not paid to a wayfarer while he is a wayfarer. Therefore that right always remains, though it is extinguished through mortal sin, because then the execution of his right is not available to him. Thus the reward of mortified merits is not like the return of remitted sins, not only because of God’s mercy—which is indeed true—but also because of this justice, which there commutes the eternal into the temporal, whereas it does not do so here, namely with respect to mortified good works.”

YOU WILL PRESS: Evil works stand in relation to punishment and vengeance as good works do to reward and recompense; but, as conceded, evil works do not revive in relation to punishment; therefore neither do good works revive in relation to recompense. — “The Doctor denies the major premise and gives this reason for the difference: evil works can be punished temporally, and sufficiently, if eternal punishment has been commuted into temporal punishment; but good merits cannot be sufficiently rewarded by such a temporal commutation, and consequently cannot be rewarded unless the eternal reward itself is conferred. This is never done while one is a wayfarer, and therefore the right to the glory acquired through those merits always remains intact.” Other reasons for the difference may also be given. First, God is more inclined to do good and show mercy than to punish; moreover, he is the author of merits, but not of sins. It is therefore no wonder if merits mortified by sin remain in divine acceptance and revive when the sin that impeded their effect is removed, whereas remitted sins do not remain in the divine intention so as to return formally, with respect to guilt or eternal punishment, through a subsequent mortal sin. Second, the remission of sins is principally God’s work, whereas the mortification of preceding merits is the human being’s work. A person cannot by his own action simply undo God’s work, though he can prevent that work from benefiting him. Therefore, by frequently sinning, he cannot erase the remission of preceding sins; but by his own action he can undo what was done through him, and so, with the help of grace, he can entirely undo the mortification of preceding merits through subsequent merits. Third, Scripture speaks differently of merits and sins. It nowhere says that the merits of a just person are abolished after a fall, cast into the depths of the sea, or the like, as it says of sins remitted through penance.

YOU WILL SAY 2: Sin stands in relation to meritorious works as death and the separation of the soul stand to the human body. For, as we said in the preceding question, just as the body’s life consists in the soul’s union with it, so the life of the soul and the virtues consists in the soul’s union with God through grace. But a dead body cannot revive without a miracle; therefore mortified works cannot revive without a miracle. — I distinguish the major premise: in one respect, I grant it, for as death impedes the body’s movement, effects, and operations, so sins impede the fruit and effect of good works; in a perfect likeness, I deny it, for works done in charity are not mortified in themselves, but because of an impediment supervening on the part of the agent, whereas the body dies in itself, insofar as it is deprived of its principle of life.

Second conclusion. — MORTIFIED WORKS ALWAYS REVIVE THROUGH THE POWER OF PENANCE WITH RESPECT TO ESSENTIAL GLORY, NOT MERELY WITH RESPECT TO ACCIDENTAL GLORY. This is the Doctor’s teaching in the passage cited above, n. 9, where he says: “Universally, every merit is owed not merely some accidental reward, but also an essential one.”

The conclusion is proved from the Council of Trent cited above, where it says: “Eternal life is to be proposed both as grace mercifully promised to the sons through Christ Jesus and as a reward faithfully to be rendered, in accordance with God’s own promise, for their good works and merits.” Now the reward for good works is not merely accidental but essential, and it must be proposed to those who have recovered the grace of God they lost. These are the people in whom works mortified by sin revive through penance. Therefore, and so forth.

The conclusion is proved by an argument: mortified works are said to revive through penance because, when sin is removed, they recover their efficacy to lead the person who performed them to eternal life. For to give them life means nothing other than to have them accepted for glory through grace. But eternal life signifies not merely accidental joy, but an essential reward; accidental joy is rather an appendage of eternal life than eternal life itself. Further, good works are restored to the life they previously had; but life is the substance of a thing, not an accident. Therefore, if merits revive in relation to eternal life, they undoubtedly revive to a substantial reward. Finally, to revive only to accidental glory, or an accidental reward, is merely to confer a right to special joy on account of mortified works. But this is not peculiar to mortified works: it also belongs to works that died before penance was performed, since the blessed will have accidental joy over good works that died—that is, were elicited in the state of mortal sin. For perhaps in view of these works God gave them a spirit of compunction and penance. Indeed, God is often moved by those works, at least by way of congruity, to bestow the grace by which those sinners are drawn to penance; and consequently the blessed will have accidental joy on account of those works. Moreover, these things are true not only of outstanding merits but also of less fervent ones, as the Doctor proves, n. 11, where, having said that glory corresponds not only to grace under the title of inheritance but also to merits under the title of recompense, he adds: “This view, holding that an essential degree of glory corresponds to merit, accords with Scripture, which in many places asserts this principle of divine justice: that he will render to each according to his works, in Psalm 61 and Romans 2; nowhere, however, does it say that he will render to each according to his habit. It also accords with observance of the divine law, since according to it it is useful continually, as far as possible, to perform meritorious works, even if less fervently, so that grace is not immediately increased by them; for a determinate degree of glory corresponds to each merit in God’s acceptance. Nor is it as expedient to preserve grace as to perform a less fervent work by which grace is not increased. For even if the one acting less fervently does not have greater grace through his work than the one sleeping, in whom grace is preserved without such a work, he does not act in vain nor in no way surpass the one who dozes; rather, by what he does, he is already worthy of some eternal good, of which the other is not worthy.” So says the Doctor, teaching that glory corresponds not only to habitual grace but also to merits, and not only to outstanding good works but also to less fervent ones, although a person is not immediately worthy of glory except by reason of sanctifying grace. Hence he infers first that someone worthy of greater glory, speaking of the glory corresponding to merits and of worthiness that is not immediate but remote—as, for example, a right that is suspended—is damned, while another, worthy of far less glory in this way, is saved. This is because the latter has immediate worthiness, since his right is not suspended; he is also worthy of that other glory corresponding to grace, of which the damned person is not worthy. No one is granted what corresponds to merits without what corresponds to grace.

If, moreover, what corresponds to merit is of the same kind as what corresponds to grace, and every merit increases the latter in divine acceptance, then finite merits will correspond to no more glory than what corresponds to that grace. Someone possessing it at a determinate degree would therefore be saved, while someone possessing all these merits, but mortified, would be damned. Thus a person is damned who is worthy, but whose worthiness is remote and suspended; one worthy of far greater glory is therefore damned, while one whose worthiness is immediate and whose glory is far lesser is saved. Nor is this surprising, since while an enemy remains an enemy, no past good works suffice to obtain a reward. He infers secondly that works to which a great degree of glory corresponds cannot, while mortified, merit even the least grace; otherwise someone who had fallen after many merits would already have merited rising from that fall through the first grace to be conferred on him on account of those merits. Nevertheless, I do not think that mortified merits contribute absolutely nothing to God’s acceptance of this fallen person for the gift of first grace. For even if, according to strict justice, this enemy of God is not immediately worthy of any grace or glory, God’s abundant mercy, because of preceding merits, although mortified, grants grace more quickly for rising again. Thus, just as I believe a more perfect degree of grace is lost because of greater ingratitude, so, other things being equal, I believe he rises again more quickly because of the goodness⁵ that in some measure accepts those merits for this purpose. I once heard of a man who had previously been very perfect and afterward fell very deeply; when he had been condemned to death for his crimes, he was most mercifully visited, and the most perfect penance was suddenly inspired in him. This ought strongly to encourage everyone to act meritoriously at all times to the best of his ability, since whether he remains upright or falls, his works will not be wholly forgotten before God. The Doctor’s point is: first, that a degree of glory is owed to less fervent works just as it is to more fervent ones; second, that this debt is only remote if those works are considered apart from sanctifying grace, since glory is immediately owed only to one who departs this life with sanctifying grace. Hence it can happen that someone with only mortified merits preserved in divine acceptance is damned, if he departs this life in mortal sin, and accordingly that a person damned on account of those mortified works has a remote right to glory. Conversely, an adult with a lesser right to glory can be saved if he dies with sanctifying grace, having only less fervent merits. Third, mortified works, however numerous and outstanding, cannot avail to merit first grace de condigno, but only de congruo. For since those mortified works always endure and remain in divine acceptance, God may be attracted and moved by them to confer that first grace, so that those merits may revive through the sinner’s conversion and thus receive the eternal reward due to them.

Third conclusion. — IT IS PROBABLE THAT THROUGH PENANCE THE LOST GRACE DOES NOT REVIVE OR GET RESTORED. This seems to be the Doctor’s view in In IV Sent., d. 22, nn. 9 and 10. For he says: “Setting aside that in glory which corresponds to merits, and calling it B, and separating it from that which corresponds to grace, and calling that A, perhaps A exceeds B. When this person rises again, because all his previous merits live in God’s acceptance, the right and worthiness to all of B return to him; but the right and worthiness to A do not return. Thus the merits revive, but the former grace does not revive, since it had been possessed before; and this is quite consonant with justice, because grace was only God’s gift, whereas merits were in some way the person’s own works.” Therefore those merits are always preserved in God’s acceptance, but grace is not, so as to be ordered through it to some reward; rather, it is so ordered only through grace if he has it now. In these words the Doctor signifies, first, that glory is owed to a person under two titles: as an inheritance by reason of sanctifying grace, and as a reward by reason of good works. Thus, for merits to have an immediate right to glory, the present state of sanctifying grace is sufficient; it is not necessary that the sanctifying grace through which those meritorious works were elicited also be present. Hence it can happen that a person with greater merits and less sanctifying grace obtains greater enjoyment of God than another who had equal grace and lesser merits, since merit establishes a title of its own with respect to glory, distinct from the title of habitual grace. This is gathered from Scripture, which often testifies that glory is promised to good works. Thus Romans 2: “He will render to each according to his works”; Romans 4, v. 4: “To the one who works, the reward is not reckoned according to grace but according to debt”; Hebrews 6, v. 10: “For God is not unjust, that he should forget your work”; Ecclesiasticus 16, v. 15: “Every mercy will make room for each according to the merit of his works.” Scripture very often uses this kind of expression elsewhere. “All divine Scripture,” says Scotus in Reportatio (latest edition), d. 21, single q., n. 8, “cries out that the measure of reward corresponds to meritorious works and not to habits. For, according to the Philosopher, Ethics I, 5, the wretched person is not distinguished from the happy, nor the sleeper from the wakeful, by a habit; but in the Creed it is said that those who have done good will go into eternal life.” Indeed, the promise of the kingdom was made to a person on account of works, not habits: “If you would enter into life, keep the commandments,” says Christ, the Truth, Matthew 19, v. 17; and Matthew 5, v. 3: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” and so forth. Therefore a work is accepted by God for eternal life on its own account, and not only on account of grace, although it is not accepted unless grace is present. “Supposing,” says the Doctor above in Reportatio, “that a meritorious work could be accepted without grace, so that an act of its kind as an act were acceptable to God, an essential reward and glory would still correspond to it. For every such work would be meritorious and rewardable with eternal life; consequently, a degree of reward corresponds to each degree of meritorious work, and a greater and more intense glory and recompense to a greater degree of merit. As things stand, however, for our works to be acceptable to God and worthy of the reward of eternal life, charity and grace are required, since without them it is impossible to please God. The reward corresponds not to the intention but to the meritorious work elicited according to its inclination. Hence one who has charity alone, without merits and good works, will have as much essential glory and reward as one who has less charity together with many merits and good works. Yet one who has great charity alone, without meritorious works, will not have as much glory as with them, because the reward principally corresponds to them.” This is the Doctor’s teaching.

His opinion can be confirmed by the fact that meritorious works have a special right to eternal glory, distinct from habitual grace. For if those works had that right only from grace and only by reason of it, and were accepted by God in relation to the reward of eternal life, this would occur either through first grace—and this is not so, because first grace is a gift of God and does not confer a right to glory as a reward, as is clear in infants who die with baptismal grace alone—or they would be accepted through second grace, that is, an increase of grace. But this cannot be said, since that increase is a secondary reward of the works themselves, so that through those works grace, once accepted, is preserved and brought to completion. Therefore it is not impossible for someone to have many merits in divine acceptance, and consequently a right to greater glory, even though in fact he does not have, and perhaps will not have after death, more intense grace. For a right founded on good works can remain with respect to glory not yet granted, even if the same right does not remain to grace that was given and lost through sin. Although the execution of the right to glory is impeded by the absence of grace, it returns through even the least degree of grace, since the Council of Trent, sess. VI, can. 33, requires only this condition: “If he dies in grace.” From all this one may infer that the whole right can be recovered—that is, the entire claim to the former right to the glory owed, whether as recompense for good works or as inheritance to be repaid on account of sanctifying grace—without restoring grace once lost.

It is confirmed again: if lost grace had necessarily to be restored when good works revive, this would be chiefly because grace is required for glory either as a prior disposition, or so that a person may be said to be accepted by God in order to obtain this reward, or insofar as charity or grace is a means of attaining the reward. But none of these considerations proves that merits cannot revive with respect to the essential reward alone, even if lost grace is not restored. Not as a disposition, since the grace owed to a merit that revives is not a disposition antecedent to the merit, but rather an effect that follows it. Nor is it an objection that an increase of that grace is granted before glory is bestowed: that increase is granted earlier because it must be given to a wayfarer, whereas glory is granted only after death. Nor must that grace be restored so that mortified works may first become acceptable to God, since nothing else is required for this than that those works were done in grace and have grace joined to them, through which a person becomes acceptable to God. This can happen without restoring the grace that was lost, since the sanctifying grace obtained by the penitent suffices both for mortified works to revive and for them to be accepted by God in relation to eternal life.

I said in the conclusion that this is probable, not certain, although the Doctor seems to lean more toward this assertion. For the opposite opinion is not without probability: namely, that through penance not only do meritorious works revive in relation to glory, but the habitual grace previously lost is also restored. All the Scriptural oracles by which we proved above that meritorious works revive support this opinion, especially Ezekiel 33: “The wickedness of the wicked man will not harm him on whatever day he turns away from his wickedness.” It would harm him greatly, however, if through penance, while the right to glory owed for good works was restored, all the lost sanctifying grace were not also restored, under whose title as inheritance that very glory had been promised. The same may be gathered from the words of Joel 2: “I will repay you for the years that the locust, the cankerworm, the mildew, and the caterpillar consumed.” Commenting on these words, St. Jerome says: “God did not allow the years you had lost within yourselves through the disturbances—that is, the sins—that formerly ruled, when the locust, cankerworm, and caterpillar consumed your works, to perish.” A little later he says: “If after penance God promises such abundance of all things, what will Novatian say, who denies that sinners can do penance and be restored to their former state if they perform works of penance worthily? “For God receives penitents to such an extent that he calls them his people and by no means says that they will be put to shame,” and so forth. They would not be restored to their former state if even the least grace previously possessed were not restored. The parable of Luke 15, “About the Prodigal Son,” can serve the same purpose: when the son comes to his senses, the father commands that the first robe be given back to him. “The father said to his servants: ‘Quickly bring out the first robe,’” and so forth, v. 22. The Fathers understand the robe to mean grace, and “first” to mean the grace he had before sin. For St. Chrysostom says in Homily 4 on Luke: “Then immediately he orders the first robe, or his former glory, to be brought to him, which he had lost when stripped by the devil’s seduction; and at the same time the ring, or seal of the saving symbol, or rather the sign of the dispensation and pledge of those nuptials by which Christ espouses the Church, since every repentant soul is joined to Christ by the ring of faith.”

YOU WILL OBJECT 1. It is unfitting, says the Doctor, n. 9, that everyone rising from mortal sin should rise with greater and more abundant grace than the grace he lost by sinning. But that would be so if the lost grace were restored together with the new grace required for justification and rising from sins. Therefore, and so forth. The Doctor will prove the major premise in two ways. First, if lost grace were restored and a person received it along with new grace in justification, it would follow that whenever he sinned again, he would always sin more gravely, since he would fall from a more exalted state and lose greater graces. Second, he says that first grace can be greater or lesser and, consequently, minimal; but first grace is acquired through penance; therefore it can happen that minimal grace is restored through penance, and consequently a person rising again with the grace received through penance does not necessarily recover all the grace lost. — I ANSWER that the major premise can be denied, since the Doctor put this forward not assertively but only as a doubt; he says, “It seems unfitting,” and so forth. Hence the first argument for his major premise can be denied: it would not follow from it that one who sins again sins more gravely, because the gravity of sin is not derived precisely from the dignity and greater holiness of the sinner, but from the sinful act itself, insofar as it is opposed to a nobler virtue, rectitude, conformity, and tendency toward a more excellent end or object. The Doctor himself teaches this in In II Sent., d. 37, q. 1, n. 9, where he says: “That sin is graver in kind which is opposed to a better rectitude; and that rectitude is better which is more immediately directed to the end, other things being equal … Speaking, however, of the same kind of mortal sin, that sin is graver in which the will sins with greater lust,” and so forth. Add that one may deny that it is unfitting for a person to sin more gravely every time he falls into sin, on account, for example, of the circumstance of greater ingratitude, as we shall say in the following question. Regarding the second argument, I say that one may grant that the grace restored through penance could be minimal insofar as it is obtained through penance; this is not so, however, if we are speaking of grace that is partly acquired anew and partly restored. Given this, a disciple of the Subtle Doctor may, without injury to so great a Master, defend either side: either the affirmative, namely that all habitual grace lost is restored through penance, as many more recent Scotists also teach, especially Bosco, disp. 6, sect. 7, n. 71; or the negative, toward which the Doctor seems to lean more, and which is followed by Durandus, In III Sent., d. 31, q. 2; Almain, d. 22, q. 1; and all the more ancient Scotists, among whom Hiquaeus especially agrees in his Commentary on d. 22, n. 67.

The two opposing opinions could nevertheless, as I conjecture, be reconciled by saying that lost grace is restored, not in its physical being—that is, as a quality and habit constituting us participants in the divine nature and adopted children of God—but in its moral being, or as grace, insofar as through it a just person is accepted for glory by means of good works, whether present or past, that remain in divine acceptance. Thus, when works revive, grace is said to increase, not as a supernatural quality that becomes greater and more intense through the addition of lost grace, as every quality becomes more intense through the addition of another of the same species, but only insofar as it has the formal character of grace—that is, insofar as it makes a person pleasing to God, who accepts his merits in relation to eternal glory to be conferred as a reward and recompense. The Doctor indeed suggests this in the same d. 22, n. 9, where he says: “Grace is not immediately increased by every merit, nor is one who has more merits always in greater grace. Therefore, even if grace alone suffices for some glory, still some degree of glory corresponds to merits at least. Although greater glory corresponds to greater grace without merits than to lesser grace, nevertheless, at any same degree of grace, when merit is added, even if grace is not immediately intensified by it, a degree of glory corresponds to that merit beyond the degree that would correspond precisely to that grace.” So says the Doctor. He thereby signifies that grace can increase in the character of grace, that is, insofar as it makes a person acceptable to God by reason of good works joined to it, even if it is not intensified as a supernatural quality through the addition of further degrees of like grace. The Angelic Doctor teaches the same, I-II, q. 114, a. 8, ad 3, where he says: “By every meritorious act a person merits an increase of grace, just as he merits the consummation of grace, which is eternal life. But just as eternal life is not given immediately, but in its own time, so neither is grace increased immediately, but in its own time, namely when someone has been sufficiently disposed to an increase of grace. From this it is clear that one who has more merits always has greater grace in the order of grace—that is, of acceptance—but not in the order of quality.”

YOU WILL SAY: Whiteness cannot be intensified as whiteness without being intensified as a quality. Therefore grace cannot be increased as grace without also being increased under the aspect of quality. Consequently, if lost grace is restored and becomes greater upon revival under the aspect of grace, then it will be restored and become greater under the aspect of quality as well. — I DENY THE PARITY. The reason for the difference is that the quality by which a person becomes just and pleasing to God does not have this effect by its own nature, but only by divine ordination. Hence a person who has one degree of habitual grace can be accepted by God, either by his sheer divine liberality or in view of meritorious works, for ten degrees of glory. The case is otherwise with whiteness, which by its own nature makes a subject white.

YOU WILL INFER: Therefore an increase of grace in the order of quality is granted in vain, since by reason of one degree of grace God can accept a person for a hundred degrees of glory. — I DENY THE INFERENCE. For grace serves not only to make a person pleasing to God and to render his works pleasing and acceptable in relation to glory, which indeed depends on divine ordination and institution; it also affects the soul, making it more powerful and vigorous for acting, especially for eliciting supernatural acts, which could in no way be elicited without the help and support of such grace. Moreover, grace is an inner splendor of the soul that adorns and illuminates it. Thus, although one degree of grace may be as effective as ten with respect to divine acceptance and glory, it is not so with respect to the power of acting and the soul’s beauty: the more degrees of grace the soul receives, the more powerful it becomes for eliciting supernatural acts, and the more nobly it is illuminated and adorned.