Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae

St. Thomas, q. 1.

PROLOGUE FROM ST. THOMAS

[« Since, as Damascene says, lib. II Fidei orthod., c. 12, man is said to be made to the image of God, inasmuch as by the image is signified « something intellectual, and free in will, and having power of himself¹; » after it has been treated of the exemplar, namely of God, and of those things which proceeded from the divine power according to His will, it remains that we consider His image, that is, man, inasmuch as he himself is the principle of his own works, as having free will and power over his own works. »]

The end, setting aside its various senses, is here taken for that one of the causes which entices the agent to act, and is defined as « that for the sake of which something is done », or, « that for the sake of which the agent acts. »

From this you will infer, 1°, that the end is the principle in matters to be done by man, and the first of all causes¹. Whence it is commonly said that the end stands to matters of action as the principle stands to matters of speculation; for as the intellect is moved from principles to conclusions, so the will is moved by the end to the means.

You will infer, 2°, that end and good are the same materially²; because the will cannot be moved or allured except by a true or apparent good, which is its adequate object. They differ, however, formally, because good is so called insofar as it is agreeable to the appetite, the end insofar as it moves to the means; for it is that for the sake of which something is done.

You will infer, 3°, that the end, since it is first in intention, is last in execution, whence it is called the end³; because, in order that the end be obtained in reality, the means must precede.

You will infer, 4°, that the end does not move, nor exert final causality, unless apprehended⁴; because the will is not borne except toward what is known.

The various divisions of the end.

First, the end is divided into the end for the sake of which and the end for which⁵. The end for the sake of which is the thing which is sought; the end for which is the person or subject for whom the end for the sake of which is sought: thus the end for the sake of which, in the physician, is health; the end for which is the sick person, for whom he seeks health. This division, however, is not into two distinct ends, but into two things integrating one total end; for the end for the sake of which, e.g., health, is not sought in itself and in the abstract, but as good for the sick person.

2° The end is divided into the objective end, or the end which, and the formal end, or the end by which⁶. The objective end, or the end which, is the thing or object which we desire to attain; the formal end, or the end by which, is its attainment and possession: thus riches are the objective end of the miser, their acquisition the formal end⁷. This division, like the preceding, is not a division into two distinct ends, but into two formalities or things integrating one total end; for the miser does not intend riches except in order to possess them.

3° The end is divided into the end of the work and the end of the agent⁸. The end of the work is that to which the work tends by its own nature; the end of the agent is that which the agent sets for himself at will: e.g., in almsgiving, the end of the work is relief of the poor, the end of the agent is either God, or vainglory, or fornication; it can also be the very end of the work, for they sometimes coincide. The end of the work is called physical, proper, intrinsic, and universal; the end of the agent is called moral, extrinsic, and particular.

4° It is divided into the primary or principal end, and the secondary or less principal end. The primary is that which is per se intended first, or which per se moves the agent first; the secondary is that which is intended or moves not per se first, but secondarily and consequently, with something else presupposed; and therefore it is subordinated to the primary end, not as a means, but either as an effect, or as something consequently annexed to it. Thus the primary end of the recitation of the Breviary is divine worship, the secondary the stipend.

5° It is divided into the end effected and the end obtained. The end effected is that which comes to be and is produced by the operation of the agent, as health by the operation of the physician; the end obtained is that which is acquired by the operation of the agent, but not produced, as the prize of a contest. These two ends do not differ in the manner of causing, for each causes insofar as it is in the intention, but in the manner of being; because the one exists before the operation, and is called antecedent, the other after the operation, and is called consequent.

6° Finally, it is divided into the ultimate end and the non-ultimate end. The ultimate end is that which is desired for the sake of no other, but for the sake of which the rest are desired; the non-ultimate end, or intermediate end, is that which indeed is desired on its own account, yet with relation and dependence upon a further end.

Concerning this last division into the ultimate end and the non-ultimate or intermediate end

You will ask, whether the intermediate end truly and properly has the character of an end.

I answer affirmatively.

Proof. Not only to means, but also to ends, it belongs to be subordinated to other perfections, and yet to be desired on their own account and for their own sake. Therefore the character of an end belongs to them, not an ultimate one, since an end subordinated to another end cannot be ultimate in that series. Therefore it is intermediate. — Proof of the antecedent. There are certain means which are not desired as merely and precisely useful, giving simply a passage to the end, but as importing in themselves a desirable goodness sufficient to terminate some motion in that genus, although subordinately and dependently on a further goodness: e.g., savory food is desired for the sake of health, health for the sake of the exercise of virtue, virtue for the sake of God. Savory food, health, and virtue, in that series, have in themselves a sufficient goodness, by reason of which they are desired, yet not in such a way that their own goodness is not itself subordinated to a further good; for the very savor of the food conduces to health, the goodness of health to virtue, the honorableness of virtue to God. Therefore.

Note. Actions which proceed from man are of a twofold kind¹. Some are called of man, others human. Those actions are properly called human which proceed from man inasmuch as he is man, that is, inasmuch as he differs from irrational creatures, not only as to substance, but also as to the mode of operating; now man differs from other irrational creatures as to the mode of operating in this, that he acts freely, and is thus master of his own acts, such that he performs them or does not perform them at will: whence those actions alone are properly called human, which proceed from a deliberate will. But the actions which indeed proceed from man, but not from a deliberate will, are actions of man. And although some can be called human as to substance, yet not as to the mode, nor properly according to moral theology, which considers man as he is a moral agent, and his actions as they are worthy of praise or blame, and have the character of merit or demerit. And so all human acts are acts of man, but not the reverse.

I say 1°: Man, in all his acts which are distinguished from the end itself, acts for the sake of the end².

Proof, by going through the acts of the will, and at the same time the chief objections are forestalled. Among the acts of the will, some are concerned with the means, as consent, choice, and use; others again with the end in the order of execution, as the possession or fruition of the end, and delight or joy; finally there are certain acts commanded by the will, namely the passive use of the other powers.

Concerning the acts which are concerned with the means, there is no difficulty; for since the will is borne toward them for the sake of attaining the end, it is clear that acts of this kind are for the sake of the end.

As to the first volition of the end, although it is not from a preceding love of the end, since it is itself the first volition of it, or the first love, it is nevertheless caused by the end. Therefore it is for the sake of the end. — Proof of the antecedent. The causality of the end consists not only in this, that it moves and allures the will toward the means out of love of itself, but also that it moves the will to the love and desire of itself on account of its own intrinsic goodness, just as principles move not only to assent to the conclusion, but also to assent to themselves on account of their own intrinsic truth. Therefore the first volition, or the first love of the end, is caused by the end. Concerning the efficacious intention of the end, which presupposes the first volition, there is no difficulty, as is evident.

As to the acts of the other powers commanded by the will as such, it is manifest that they are for the sake of the end, since the will commands them out of love of the end, namely that through them, as through means, it may attain the end.

I said, in the acts which are distinguished from the end itself, on account of possession and delight. For the possession is the end by which; the delight naturally following upon possession is its complement. Whence neither possession nor delight are reckoned in number together with the end itself; but from the end which and the end by which, and its complement, one total and complete end is composed. But an end is not for the sake of an end.

You will ask whether the indeliberate and necessary actions of man, which are not human acts, are not also for the sake of an end.

I answer that they are for the sake of an end³, whether imagined, as when someone suddenly moves his hand or foot, or naturally desired, as when someone without attention scratches his beard to relieve an itch; yet not for the sake of an end preordained by reason and to which man moves himself out of his own judgment and deliberation. And because the Author treats here of acts in the moral order, such as only deliberate and properly human acts are, he resolves the question proposed concerning those alone, and said that only properly human acts are for the sake of an end.

For the resolution of the second question, note that each thing acts for the sake of an end in the manner in which it knows it; because the end does not cause, except as apprehended. Now the end can be known in two ways, materially and formally. To know the end only materially is to know the goodness of the end, as something fitting and desirable, stopping there. To know the end formally is to know not only the goodness of the end as fitting, but also to know the proportion of the end to the one desiring and to the means, and conversely the proportion of the means and of the one desiring to the end — that the end is worthy that such a one should pursue it and such means be employed, and in turn that such means are suitable and proportioned to this end. Those things, therefore, which know the end formally, act for the sake of it formally and as moving themselves toward it; those which know it only materially, act for the sake of it only materially and as moved by another. This having been noted,

I say: it is proper to a rational nature to act for the sake of an end formally and by moving itself; but to brutes, to act materially and as moved by another⁴.

Proof. He is said to act for the sake of the end formally and by moving himself, who apprehends the end together with the proportion of it to the means and of the means to the end, and from that apprehension and judgment of reason freely moves himself to the end, as is clear from what was noted above. But this is proper to a rational nature, and not to brutes. Therefore. — Proof of the minor: both because that proportion between the end and the means is something intelligible, and not sensible; and because only a rational nature has dominion over its own acts through free will, by which it freely moves itself to the end. Therefore.

Many things can be objected concerning brutes, which seem to act for the sake of an end formally: e.g., a dog desires food, and for its sake breaks its chains; a swallow desires a nest, and for its sake gathers straw. But these things properly pertain to the natural philosophers and are resolved from what has been said, namely by saying that brutes do not apprehend nor desire the end and the means formally, but only materially, under the aspect of a fitting good, insofar as from the end and the means one total object of their appetite is composed; thus, e.g., the swallow is not borne toward the nest formally as toward an end, nor toward the straw formally as toward a means and out of desire for the nest, but by natural instinct is borne in the same way toward both as toward a fitting good. Now natural instinct is a certain vehement motion impressed upon brutes by nature, or by the author of nature, for the pursuit of the good fitting to them.

The ultimate end can be considered in two ways: 1° formally and in the abstract, under the common note of beatitude as such, whatever that may be; 2° materially, for that particular thing in which someone thinks his beatitude consists, and which he therefore sets up for himself as his ultimate end. The question of the present article does not proceed concerning the ultimate end formal and in the abstract, because since the abstract, as abstract, is one, it is evident that the ultimate end so taken cannot be conceived except after the manner of one; but concerning the ultimate end material, or, if you will, concerning the ultimate end itself formal, but in the particular and the concrete: namely, whether the very formality of the ultimate end is one, or manifold in the diverse things that are desired as ultimate ends. For which

I say: It is impossible that the same man should simultaneously desire diverse things as several total and adequate ultimate ends¹.

Proof. Each of those ends would be ultimate, as is supposed, and would not be. — Proof. The ultimate end is that which is referred to no other, and to which all things are referred; for it is that which is desired for its own sake, and everything else for the sake of it. But not all things would be referred to it — namely to that other end, which is also supposed to be ultimate — for otherwise, by this very fact, it would cease to be ultimate. Therefore.

You will object: The just man sinning venially has at once two ultimate ends, namely God, because he is just, and a creature, because he sins; for every agent acts for the sake of an ultimate end. But the ultimate end of a venial sin is not God. Therefore it is a creature. The same argument, proportion being kept, is made concerning an unbeliever or a sinner doing a good moral work, for instance almsgiving. Insofar as he is an unbeliever or a sinner, he has a creature for his ultimate end, but not insofar as he does a good moral work; otherwise all the works of unbelievers would be sins, which is condemned in Baius.

I answer that both the just man sinning venially, and the unbeliever or sinner doing a good moral work, have for their ultimate end the good in general that satisfies the appetite; for it is not necessary that one acting should have, in every one of his works, an ultimate end materially and in particular, but it suffices if he have an ultimate end formally and in general, under the note of beatitude, as I shall say again in the following article, where the present difficulty will return.

Note that man can be understood to refer his actions to an end, or to act for an end, in a fourfold way: 1° actually and formally, 2° virtually, 3° interpretatively, 4° habitually. Concerning actual formal intention there is no difficulty: it reveals itself from its very terms, and it is when someone intends a known end by an actual and express volition.

Virtual intention can come about in two ways. In the first way, when someone, by force of a past intention not retracted, acts and chooses means, although he does not actually think of the end, as when a doctor gathers herbs from a prior intention of medicine or health, of which he is not now thinking.

If you should ask what that force of the first intention is,

I answer that it is a certain determination left behind by the first intention. Now that determination is a certain dictate arisen from the first; for one thing arises from another.

If you should again ask how long that force or virtual intention lasts,

I answer more probably, that it lasts of itself until it is removed by a contrary intention, because no other thing seems assignable by which it might be destroyed: not mere non-use, even over the passage of a long time, for since it is something spiritual, it does not depend on time; not the cessation of the first intention itself, for it does not depend on its continuation, otherwise, when the actual thought or recollection of that first intention ceases, that virtual intention would at once cease, which no one admits, and the contrary of which is evident from experience itself: thus in one who intends to go to Rome, it is not necessary that he remember Rome at each single step, and yet by force of the intention of arriving at Rome he continues the journey. Therefore it remains that it ceases and is destroyed of itself only by a contrary intention. Per accidens, however, it can be destroyed by non-use over a long time; because, since the very instability of our mind rushes headlong into such varied intentions, as experience shows, from this very long non-use room is given for other contrary intentions to arise and destroy the first, as St. Thomas teaches concerning habits, below q. 53, a. 3. But be that as it may, and although this virtual intention lasts, it is nevertheless not necessary that it flow into all deliberate works, either because perhaps they are not referable to its end, as is clear in the just man sinning venially, or because they come about from a motive contrary to this intention, as in the infidel giving alms from the motive of the honesty of mercy, not thinking of the idol; just as, for example, although the intention of going to Rome remains virtually in one who has set out on the way for this end, if nevertheless at some point he turns aside from the way for the sake of curiosity, this is not from the influence of this virtually remaining intention, but apart from it. Then, however, it is recognized in practice that this virtual intention influences the work, when someone, being in possession of himself and acting morally, indeed thinks nothing actually of the prior intention, but is in that disposition of mind, that reflecting upon himself, or asked what or why he does something, he would at once allege his prior intention, and would answer: « I do this for this. »

Virtual intention of the end is had in a second way, when someone does something ordered and tending by its own nature to some end, as something less perfect to its perfection, or as a participation and inchoation of a good to its complement and consummation, whether he knows the end or not, unless perhaps he violently and against the nature of his work twists it toward another end; because, says the Author¹, the inchoation of anything is always ordered to its own consummation, as is clear both in things that come about by nature and in things that come about by art: thus nature, forming an embryo, virtually intends man; thus a lower craftsman, constructing by order of a higher craftsman a work according to the rules of his lower art, virtually intends the end of the higher craftsman, which perhaps he does not know; thus one who lays the foundations of a house intends the house; one who casts seed into the ground intends the fruit which perhaps he does not know. From which principle the Holy Doctor proves that, since every inchoation of perfection is ordered to the consummated perfection, which comes about through the ultimate end, whoever acts deliberately intends the ultimate end, if not explicitly in itself, at least implicitly and in its inchoation. Some call this second virtual intention interpretative, but improperly; for there is another, strictly and properly interpretative, which follows. This second virtual intention, therefore, is better called virtual implicit; but the first, which is by force of the prior explicit intention, is called virtual explicit.

Interpretative intention, insofar as it is distinguished from the virtual in the second way, is said to be, not one that exists or existed in fact, but one that provides a foundation for judging what would be, if the end were thought of, insofar namely as from the disposition and manner of acting of the subject it is judged and presumed that someone would so will, if he noticed, or if the case occurred: e.g., one who gives alms to a poor man whom, under a foreign garment, he believes to be a stranger, and who is nevertheless a relative, is said interpretatively to have wished to give to a relative, if he had known.

Habitual intention or relation expresses a pure concomitance of some habit with the act, without any influence, whether actual or virtual, upon the act; as if a just man sleeping were to recite prayers, or being in possession of himself were to sin venially, this is said to be referred habitually to God, on account of the concomitance of the habit of charity. Whence habitual intention differs, as is clear, from the actual and the virtual. It also differs from the interpretative; because habit, precisely as informing a power, is only an inclination in first act, and only with respect to the specification of the act, needing intention and dictate in order to issue into act, and of itself is compatible with an intention and dictate to the opposite, as is clear in the just man sinning venially. Whence, precisely as such, it does not induce a presumption that the agent would act in such a way or with such an intention, unless from elsewhere, in the acquisition of a habit of this kind through acts elicited from a first intention, some force or determination remains, by force of which he acts. But then it falls back into the virtual in the first way, and is not purely habitual.

It has pleased us to dwell a little on these points, because they run through almost the whole of Theology. Let them therefore be said once for all, and be firmly held in memory.

I say: Whatever things man wills deliberately, he wills them in act or in virtue for the sake of the ultimate end².

Proof 1°. Whatever man desires, he desires under the note of good. Therefore whatever things he wills deliberately, he wills them in act or in virtue for the sake of the ultimate end. — Proof of the consequence. That which is desired under the note of good, either is desired as the highest and perfect, fully satisfying, and thus is the ultimate end; or is desired as something less perfect tending toward the perfect good, because the inchoation of anything is always ordered to its own consummation, and thus every inchoation of perfection is ordered to the consummated perfection, which is the ultimate end. Therefore. — See the preliminary notes.

Proof 2°. The ultimate end is related to the moving of the appetite, just as the first efficient cause is related to the moving of other causes to act³. But secondary causes do not move, unless they are moved by the first. Therefore secondary ends, or secondary desirable things, do not move the appetite, except dependently on the first desirable thing, which is the ultimate end.

But you will ask, what this ultimate end is that man intends in every deliberate act: whether material, or formal?

I answer that sometimes it is material and in the concrete, sometimes it is formal, namely beatitude in general; nor do the arguments of St. Thomas prove more. So Sylvius, Serra, Contenson, and others, against John of St. Thomas and Gonet: and by this answer the difficulties, otherwise much entangled, are more easily resolved.

Thus, in order that we may return to the difficulties of the preceding article, the just man sinning venially has for his proximate end a creature or some particular pleasure; the infidel, or sinner, doing some good moral work, has likewise for his proximate end the honesty of that work: but each has for his ultimate end to be happy, or beatitude as such, satisfying the appetite. And from this the difficulties are resolved. For

It follows 1° that the venial sin of the just man does not turn into mortal, because that most common end of beatitude as such, inasmuch as it is necessarily loved and of itself indifferent to being applied to an honest or a base object, confers on the act no honesty or malice.

It follows 2° that neither the just man sinning venially, nor the infidel or sinner doing some good moral work, has two total ultimate ends; because that common end does not enter into number with the particular one, namely God or a creature, but they stand as quo and as quod, like the abstract and the concrete, which do not enter into number, nor are reckoned as absolutely several.

It follows 3° that neither the sinner nor the infidel sins in his morally good works; because, as has been said, this common end of itself confers no goodness or malice on the act, but is indifferent and can be determined by some particular honest end or object, to which, if no evil circumstance is mixed in, the act will be morally good.

To this point must be recalled the various intentions or relations of works to the end, which we reviewed in the preceding article, namely the actual, the virtual, the interpretative, and the habitual; but especial attention must be paid to the twofold virtual, one of which we called explicit by reason of a prior actual intention virtually persisting, the other implicit by reason of the object tending of itself to the end, by whose goodness the agent is moved to act. Compare the preliminary note of the said article.

The Louvain theologians teach that man, as often as he acts deliberately, is bound under venial sin to refer the act to God from love — not indeed of charity, but of benevolence — by an explicit virtual relation, left over, that is, from a preceding actual relation, which still perseveres and flows into the work; yet in such a way that the defect of this relation indeed infects the agent himself, but not the work itself.

For the explanation and assertion of the contrary opinion, which is common to the other Catholic schools,

I say 1°: Man is bound at times to refer all his works, by an explicit virtual relation, to God as his ultimate end, whether natural or supernatural, namely in that way in which he knows him or can know him.

Proof. For every man, whether faithful or unfaithful, is bound at times to elicit an act of love of God, as the ultimate end, or above all things. This all admit, even concerning unbelievers; because, although they do not know God as the author of nature, they can nevertheless know him, since there is no invincible ignorance regarding him, as we said in the First Part. But in an act of this kind of love of God above all things, and as the ultimate end, there is virtually involved the relation of all works to God as the ultimate end; for the ultimate end is that which is sought for its own sake and all other things for its sake. Whence the Author, in II Sentent., dist. 40, q. unica, a. 5, ad 6: « When someone, he says, thinks of directing his whole self to the love of God, then whatever he orders to himself will be ordered to God. » And below: « Whenever the habit of charity issues into act, there comes about the ordering of the whole man to the ultimate end, and consequently of all those things which are ordered to him as goods for himself. »

I say 2°: In order that both the agent and the work be exempted from sin, it is not necessary that man, acting deliberately, refer his work to God loved for his own sake, by an explicit virtual relation, as often as he acts; rather an implicit virtual relation suffices. Or, to speak more precisely, it is not necessary that an actual relation to God loved for his own sake should have preceded, by whose force and influence the work is elicited; but it suffices, where the precept of loving God above all things is not urgent, that the work be good from its object, and vitiated by no evil end, nor by any other evil circumstance, so that the agent, by free choice, in conformity with the dictate of reason and of the natural law, spontaneously subjects himself to the author of this law, and, loving the particular goodness of this work, is judged to love virtually and implicitly the primal and fontal goodness, which is God himself, of which this particular goodness is a participation: and consequently intends God himself implicitly.

This conclusion was first attacked by D. Hagens, professor at Louvain, in a posthumous work — if indeed it is his — to which I opposed my Vindiciae. The same conclusion, and the Vindiciae, were afterward attacked by R. P. Maugis, regent doctor at Louvain, to whom I now briefly reply, though somewhat more fully than the plan of the Compendium allows. But let the kindly reader forgive me; for his sake I will condense as much as will be permitted. And because the new adversary aims chiefly at this, that, having gathered from everywhere texts of Sts. Augustine and Thomas, he might show that the holy Doctors are opposed to us, I in turn shall aim above all, having discussed all the texts article by article, and having understood them in their true sense, to prove that the holy Doctors in no way oppose our opinion. If to this I add the solution of the things which he objects against our chief proofs, I shall, I think, have finished the matter — certain other points for and against being omitted, not because they are convincing against me, as he might pretend and has sometimes said, but because they are less necessary, less suited to a Compendium, and what I shall say will abundantly suffice to establish the conclusion against his efforts. He himself omitted many of the things which I said in both editions of this question. Does he for that reason think himself defeated? Therefore.

Proof of the 1st conclusion. No law, no precept can be assigned by which man, acting deliberately, is bound to refer his work to God otherwise than is said in the conclusion, except the precept of the love of God, which, since it is affirmative, does not oblige always, but at certain times and circumstances. Therefore, where this precept is not urgent, man is not bound to refer his work to God otherwise than is said in the conclusion. — The antecedent, besides being clear from the solution of the objections, is expressly St. Thomas's teaching, in the cited II Sentent., ad 6, where he says: « If it be asked when it is fitting to refer an act to the ultimate end, this is nothing other than to ask when it is fitting for the habit of charity to issue into act. » And 1ae 2ae q. 100, a. 10, objecting to himself that saying of the Apostle, Ⅰ Cor., X, 31: Do all to the glory of God, he answers to the 2nd thus: « Under the precept of charity is contained that God be loved with the whole heart, to which it pertains that all things be referred to God, and therefore man cannot fulfill the precept of charity unless all things also be referred to God. Thus, then, he who honors his parents is bound by charity to honor them, not by force of this precept which is: « Honor thy parents, » but by force of this precept: « Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart. » And since these are two affirmative precepts, not obliging always, they can oblige at different times, and so it can happen that someone, fulfilling the precept of honoring his parents, does not at that moment transgress the precept regarding the omission of the mode of charity. » If you say, with our adversaries, that St. Thomas here treats of charity strictly so called: granted; but what he says of charity must also be understood of the benevolent love of God, since in both cases the rationale of the affirmative precept is the same.

Against this proof the adversary objects, firstly, that the precept of the love of God, since it is affirmative, does not oblige always to continuous acts, but does oblige always virtually.

I answer, as in the Vindiciae, that this objection is directly against St. Thomas. For the holy Doctor speaks in the same way of the precept of charity as of the precept of honoring one's parents. But the latter does not oblige virtually always. Therefore neither does the former. Moreover, I think it unheard-of in the schools that affirmative precepts oblige virtually forever; for this would be for the precepts themselves simply to oblige forever.

You will insist, 1°: St. Thomas, q. 1 de Charitate, a. 11, and elsewhere, teaches in express terms that the precept of charity obliges virtually always. How then would the preceding solution be directly against St. Thomas and unheard-of in the schools, especially in the Thomistic school?

I answer that St. Thomas teaches this neither in q. 1 de Charitate nor elsewhere, as will be clear from the solution of the fourth objection; and so it remains that this solution is directly against St. Thomas and unheard-of in the schools.

You will insist, 2°: St. Thomas speaks in that way of the precept of charity and of the precept of honoring one's parents when the question concerns the time at which the act of theological charity ought to be elicited, or at which one's parents ought to be honored, but not when the question concerns the precept of referring one's works to God; for nowhere does St. Thomas say that we are not bound to refer our works to God virtually and explicitly, except when the precept of eliciting an act of charity is urgent.

But on the contrary: St. Thomas says in express terms, in II Sentent., dist. 40, q. unica, a. 5, ad 6: « If it be asked when it is fitting to refer an act to the ultimate end, this is nothing other than to ask when it is fitting for the habit of charity to issue into act. »

He replies: St. Thomas speaks of the habit of charity. But the adversaries do not say that the habit of charity is required for the explicit virtual relation of works to God; otherwise, one lacking the habit of charity, who loved God above all things with a benevolent love — by which the precept of charity is fulfilled — would not refer all his works virtually and explicitly to God, which they do not admit.

I answer that what St. Thomas says here of the habit of charity is to be understood also of benevolent love. For although the rationale of the habit of charity and of benevolent love is not in all respects the same, it is nevertheless the same, according to St. Thomas and the truth of the matter, as regards the explicit virtual relation of works to God. For this reason, according to St. Thomas and the truth of the matter, he who elicits an act of habitual charity refers all his works virtually and explicitly to God; « because when someone thinks of directing his whole self to the love of God, then whatever he orders to himself will be ordered to God. » These are the words of the holy Doctor in the place cited. But he who elicits an act of benevolent love of God above all things, by which he fulfills the precept of charity, directs his whole self to the love of God. Therefore the rationale of the habit of charity and of benevolent love is the same as regards the explicit virtual relation of works to God.

Nor is it true, as is claimed, that St. Thomas there treats only of what is required for condign merit, as though the sense of his words were: « If it be asked when it is fitting to refer an act to the ultimate end, » so that the agent might merit condignly by his relation, « this is nothing other than to ask when it is fitting for the habit of charity to issue into act »: this, I say, is by no means true, since the just man often merits condignly without the habit of charity issuing into formal act, as St. Thomas teaches in the same place, ad 2.

He objects, 2nd, against the same proof, a retortion of the argument thus: An affirmative precept does not oblige always. Therefore man is not bound always to refer his work to God by an implicit virtual relation.

I answer. I deny the consequence. The disparity is that the affirmative precept of referring all works virtually and implicitly to God not only involves, but coincides with, the negative precept of never doing evil, or is founded on it as on its own rationale: not so the precept of charity. For to one asking why I am bound to refer my act virtually and implicitly to God, I rightly answer: Because I am forbidden to do any evil act; for by this very fact that I do something absolutely good, it is virtually and implicitly referred to God. Nor can anything further be answered. But to one asking why I am bound to refer all works virtually and explicitly to God, it cannot be answered: « Because I am forbidden not to refer them, or to do some evil act; » but rather: « Because God is the ultimate end. » If you say: « Because it is not lawful to cling to a creature, » I would further ask why it is not lawful to cling to a creature, and nothing else can be answered than: « Because God, and not a creature, is the ultimate end. » Moreover it is false that he who performs an absolutely good act virtually and implicitly related to God clings to a creature.

He objects, 3rd, against the same proof, with St. Thomas's own words, 1ª 2ae, q. 100, a. 10, ad 2: « And since these two affirmative precepts (namely, of loving God and of honoring one's parents), not obliging always, can oblige at different times, it can accordingly happen that someone, fulfilling the precept of honoring his parents, does not at that moment transgress the precept regarding the omission of the mode of charity. » In these words, he says, by our own admission, St. Thomas treats of charity strictly taken and obliging under grave sin, but not always, because the precept of charity obliges only at fixed times. But that someone can fulfill the precept of honoring his parents and not sin mortally, although he does not elicit an act of charity, it does not follow that he can fulfill it and not even sin venially, although he omits the relation to God.

I answer. 1°. I deny that I conceded that St. Thomas there treats of charity strictly taken; I only granted this: Granted, I said — a word which, as all know, is not that of a person conceding, but of a person allowing it to pass. 2° Although the precept of charity in itself obliges under grave sin, I did not concede that it could not, per accidens and from the circumstances, oblige under venial sin, as in the other precepts of believing, hoping, honoring one's parents, paying one's debts, etc. 3° We do not concede that the precept of charity, even broadly taken, of referring all and each of our acts virtually and explicitly to God — if it be granted to exist — in itself obliges only under venial sin. Of this, below. 4° Finally, whether St. Thomas speaks of charity strictly or broadly taken for benevolent love, it makes no difference as regards the present question, since the precept of each is affirmative. The question between us and our adversaries is whether, according to the holy Doctor, we are bound, by the precept of charity whether strictly or broadly taken for benevolent love, to refer all and each of our acts virtually and explicitly to God. If we are so bound, as the adversaries hold: then that precept obliges in every act, which, however, St. Thomas expressly denies, because it is affirmative. Let him now see what the force of the argument is.

To what D. Hagens had said, that in the phrase of St. Thomas the precept does not oblige except while and insofar as it binds under mortal sin, I answered in the Vindiciae that the sense of St. Thomas is that venial sin is not against the law, in this sense, that it does not overturn the end of the law; yet it is against the law, in this sense, that it is forbidden by the law. And this the new adversary concedes; but because on this matter I had cited certain texts of St. Thomas, he contends that I cited them wrongly, and seems to accuse me, as it were, of carelessness or bad faith. Although it would not be difficult to prove our sense in these texts, yet since he concedes what I principally intend, and he himself says that he does not need those texts, it suffices to remove the suspicion of carelessness or bad faith if I say that I cited these texts in the same manner and in the same sense in which the most celebrated Sylvius cited them, 1ª 2ae, q. 71, a. 6 — whom no one, I think, will accuse of carelessness or bad faith. Let the first proof, then, remain unshaken.

Proof of the 2nd conclusion. An unbeliever or sinner who, with no preceding actual relation to God loved for his own sake, gives alms from a motive of mercy, honors his parents from a motive of piety, pays his debts from a motive of justice, sins on no count: not on the part of the object, which is good and upright; not on the part of the circumstances, since I suppose none evil to be present; not from a defect of end, since he has for his proximate and explicit end the particular goodness of this work: and since this particular goodness of itself tends toward and is referred to the source, author, and perfecter of all goodness, who is God, he has God virtually and implicitly for his ultimate end.

It is confirmed, 1°. He who wills some good work, e.g., almsgiving, formally and explicitly on account of its particular goodness, wills it virtually and explicitly on account of goodness as such; for he is not moved formally and explicitly by the particular goodness without being moved virtually and explicitly by goodness as such: and since this goodness as such is in reality God, he wills it virtually and implicitly on account of God.

It is confirmed, 2°, and this fundamental reason is more fully explained. A sinner or unbeliever, in whom the love of natural goodness and equity is not entirely abolished, who from that love does certain just and upright things without any admixture of an evil circumstance, but in conformity with the dictate of right reason and the natural law — for example, renders to his neighbor what is his, keeps faith given to a friend, has mercy on an afflicted innocent, etc. — precisely because he sees these things to be just, and by the natural light feels himself bound to them: 1° here and now obeys God, although he does not know him explicitly enough, because he does what God, the author of all equity, commands to be done; 2° acts implicitly on account of God, because he acts on account of equity and natural goodness, of which God is the author and perfecter; 3° implicitly and in a certain respect loves God as the first rule of good actions, because he loves the goodness which God commands to be loved. Whence Augustine, on Psalm 100, n. 6, introducing God as speaking: « Whatever is done well is done to me, because it is done at my command. »

And this is the most express opinion of St. Thomas, who, in ch. XIV of Romans, lect. 3, says in decisive words: « In an unbelieving man, along with his unbelief, there is the good of nature. And therefore, when some unbeliever does some good thing from the dictate of reason, not referring it to an evil end, he does not sin. » Nothing indeed could be more express, and it is our very conclusion, nor do I see what the adversaries can answer. For they cannot say that he does not sin by the sin of the work but of the worker, since the holy Doctor says absolutely, indefinitely, and without any restriction: « He does not sin. » Therefore he sins neither by the sin of the work nor by the sin of the worker; otherwise he would sin.

But perhaps St. Thomas means this of mortal sin, namely, that he does not sin mortally, but indeed venially. This indeed is how the adversary interprets it, but he is utterly wide of the mark. For the holy Doctor immediately adds, after the words quoted: « Yet his work is not meritorious, because it is not informed by grace. » Why, I ask, would St. Thomas have added this observation, if he had judged that this unbeliever sinned venially in his good work? Has anyone ever dreamed that a man merits by sinning venially, or that venial sin is meritorious?

But, says the adversary, St. Thomas explains clearly enough that he means this of mortal sin, immediately subjoining: « But when an unbelieving man does something precisely because he is an unbeliever, it is manifest that he sins; » namely, mortally.

But on the contrary: In the first place, the adversary is mistaken; for the holy Doctor does not subjoin these words to the former immediately, but after several lines. But that matters little. Not even a hundred-eyed Argus could see that St. Thomas explains the former words by these later ones in the sense of the adversary. St. Thomas in the later words treats of mortal sin: Granted; does he therefore do so in the earlier words? An unbeliever acting from unbelief sins mortally. Therefore an unbeliever acting from the dictate of reason and doing some good, not referring it to an evil end, sins venially, though not mortally. What a consequence! Let there be a familiar example. The adversary, to a penitent consulting him about the defamation of his neighbor, answers: « If you reveal grave sins of your neighbor for a good and necessary end, you do not sin; if you reveal them from hatred and with the intention of defaming, without a necessary end, you sin. » In the second member the matter concerns mortal sin: does it therefore also in the first? Does one who reveals his neighbor's sin for a good and necessary end therefore sin venially, even though not mortally? See by what glosses and interpretations the clearest words of the holy Doctor are obscured, so that, even against his will, he may be held to be the patron of a singular opinion against the common opinion of the Catholic schools. Let the argument made before, then, return. St. Thomas says absolutely, indefinitely, and without any restriction, that this unbeliever does not sin. Therefore he does not sin, neither mortally nor venially; otherwise he would sin, which St. Thomas denies. The holy Doctor speaks in the same manner and sense in 2ª 2ae, q. 10, a. 4, o, where he says: « It is not necessary that [unbelievers] sin in every one of their works, but whenever they perform some work out of unbelief, then they sin. »

Moreover, against this proof the adversary objects, firstly, a retortion of the argument concerning the conjugal act, from St. Thomas in IV Sentent., dist. 31, q. 2, a. 2; but of this in the solution of the objections, obj. 3.

He objects, 2nd: This unbeliever or sinner does not indeed sin by a sin of action, but he does sin by a sin of omission, insofar as his work is not further referred to God, either actually or virtually, and so he rests in a creature; which cannot be without sin.

I answer that this unbeliever or sinner does not sin even by a sin of omission, because his work is sufficiently referred to God, nor is there given a precept of referring it further — or let him produce one; and thus he does not rest in a creature.

Moreover St. Thomas says most formally, indefinitely, absolutely, and without any restriction, that this man does not sin. Why then does he keep dinning into our ears the distinction between the sin of action and of omission? Perhaps this distinction escaped the sagacity of the Angelic Doctor.

He objects, 3rd, against the same proof: Our virtual relation does not excuse from every sin, as is clear from St. Thomas on the conjugal act. But, as before, of this argument in the solution of the objections, obj. 3. Meanwhile let him hear St. Thomas as cited: « He does not sin. » Therefore he is excused from every sin.

He objects, 4th, against the same proof: Our relation is not a relation in the true sense of the name; otherwise one who reads or studies, because he loves some particular virtue, would be judged to love God implicitly, who is the first truth.

I answer that truth is the object of the intellect, not of the will, except as good. If, therefore, someone loves truth as good for himself, as suited to his state according to the dictate of reason and prudence, he will be judged to love God virtually and implicitly, as in other good works.

And thus the adversary's efforts against this proof remain disarmed, which accordingly stands in its full force.

Proof of the 3rd conclusion. If man, acting deliberately, is bound to refer all his actions to God loved for his own sake by an explicit virtual relation, in the sense of the adversaries, the defect of this relation would vitiate not only the agent, but also the work. But the consequent is false, as the adversaries themselves admit. Therefore. — Proof of the inference of the major. An act not ordered to its due end is a disordered and evil act. Whence St. Thomas, 1ª 2ae, q. 18, a. 9, o, says: « An act proceeding from deliberate reason, if it is not ordered to its due end, by this very fact is repugnant to reason, and has the character of evil. » From which principle he infers that no act is indifferent in the individual. But, according to the adversaries, an act not related to God loved for his own sake by an explicit virtual relation is an act not ordered to its due end. Therefore.

The adversaries reply that the defect of the relation affects the agent, but in no way the work; consequently, even if the agent sins through the defect of the explicit relation, the work nevertheless remains untouched. And this they attempt to prove by various examples. Thus, they say, one who is bound by vow to recite the seven penitential Psalms on bended knees, if he recites them attentively and devoutly while standing, sins, but his action is not evil; thus one who by the precept of his confessor is bound to refer virtually and explicitly to God the alms enjoined on him, and in giving the alms omits this relation, sins, but the almsgiving is not evil; thus one who by the precept of the Church is bound to fast in order to avert war and famine, and fasts only for one end, sins, but his fast is not evil, etc.

I answer that the disparity is that in these and similar examples the obligation affects the agent, and not the act; but in our case, according to the principles of the adversaries, it affects both: because, according to them, this obligation arises from the dominion which God, as first principle and ultimate end, has not only over the agent, but also over his action; consequently this obligation affects the agent and the act, and this end is owed to the act in the individual no less than that which is said to be otherwise intrinsic, and it is of a different character from the other circumstances. Whence, just as, according to us, an act would be evil if, by reason of some circumstance, it were not referred virtually and implicitly to God; so, according to the adversaries, it must be judged evil, if it is not referred explicitly to God, especially since, according to them, it rests in a creature.

The adversary contends that the mere lack of the due end never formally vitiates an action. What, then, does St. Thomas mean, when he says that « an act proceeding from deliberative reason, if it is not ordered to the due end, by this very fact is repugnant to reason, and has the character of evil? » He answers: « St. Thomas does not say that an act ordered to no due end is formally vitiated by the mere lack of an end. » Let him say, I would like to know, whether for an act to be repugnant to reason and to become evil from the lack of the due end, is not for the act to be vitiated formally from the lack of the due end. These are synonymous.

We do not deny, however, that one acting without the due end has an evil end, not in itself, but evil in this sense, that it is not due; for by this very fact, says St. Thomas, the act is repugnant to reason and has the character of evil, and in the same sense St. Thomas said in II Sentent., dist. 40, a. 5, ad 5, that the end of a deliberate act cannot be indifferent. And thus the principal arguments of the adversary collapse. Moreover, granted that a positively and in-itself evil end is required in the agent lacking the due end, in order for his act to be evil, this is held in the opinion of the adversaries, namely, a clinging to a creature.

For the rest, I repeat what I said in the first edition of this question, and then in Vindiciis, that I do not principally insist on this argument. Indeed I granted, and even now I grant to the adversaries, what they intend. « Granted, I was saying, that the work is not infected by a defect of the relation. » Wherefore I think it superfluous to dwell here any longer.

Proof of the 4th conclusion. If man sins by the defect of an explicit virtual relation to God loved for his own sake, when he does a work good from its object, it follows that it is necessary for an unbeliever, so long as he remains an unbeliever, to sin in every work; which is condemned by Alexander VIII in this proposition: « It is necessary for an unbeliever to sin in every work. » It is the eighth. This is understood in its obvious sense, so long as he is an unbeliever.

The adversary objects 1° against this proof, that he acknowledges in unbelievers sufficient graces, with which they can avoid sin.

I answer. Either those sufficient graces bring with them a knowledge of the true God, or they do not. If the former, they cease, on this score, to be unbelievers; but the condemned proposition is understood of unbelievers, so long as they remain unbelievers: if the latter, they will not be able to refer their acts virtually and explicitly to God, whom they do not know, and thus, by the defect of this relation, they will necessarily sin in every one of their works.

He objects 2° that unbelievers, in his opinion, do not sin in the work, but in the omission. But the obvious sense of this proposition: « To sin in the work, » is that the work is vitiated.

I answer that the obvious sense of this proposition: « The unbeliever sins in every work, » is: « The unbeliever sins as often as he acts, » whether he sins with the sin of the work, or of the one working; just as when we say in French: « Il pèche dans toutes ses actions, » the sense is: « Il pèche toutes les fois qu'il agit. » The adversaries, however, admit that the unbeliever sins as often as he acts, namely by the defect of the explicit relation. Moreover, that this is the sense of the condemned proposition, we draw out from the circumstances: 1° because, if the Supreme Pontiff had condemned this proposition only insofar as it says that the work is vitiated, he would have condemned nothing other than what had already been condemned by three Supreme Pontiffs in Baius, namely, that all the works of unbelievers are sins. Nor say that this second proposition adds a new falsity to the first, when it says: « It is necessary that all the works of unbelievers be sins; » for that is also implied in the first. For if all the works of unbelievers are sins, without doubt it is necessary that it be so, otherwise it would sometimes happen otherwise; 2° because, according to Baius, the author of this proposition, all the works of unbelievers are sins for this reason, that they are not explicitly referred to God. But it is impossible for works to be explicitly referred to God by those who do not know him, as unbelievers are. Therefore it is necessary, in the sense of the condemned proposition, that all the works of unbelievers be sins.

Likewise Baius used to say that the works of unbelievers not referred to God are sins, because he ascribed the defect of the relation to the work itself; and when certain theologians, after his condemnation, in order to avoid it, said that the work was not a sin, but that the one working nevertheless sinned by the defect of the relation, ascribing, to be sure, the defect of the relation to the one working and not to the work, they were again condemned in the proposition above. Therefore they were not condemned because they said that the works of unbelievers are sins, but because they said that the unbeliever sins in the work, that is, in working without the relation.

The adversary insists: Whoever says of some author: « He sins in his style, » the sense is that the style is faulty. Therefore, when it is said: « The unbeliever sins in every work, » the sense is that all his works are faulty.

I answer. Granting the antecedent, I deny the consequent. The disparity is, first, that in the adversary's proposition the object and the matter in which the sin lies are explicitly determined; it is not so when it is said generally: « He sins in every work, » which, according to the common understanding, signifies, as often as he acts, as has been said. Second, the disparity is that the sense which we attribute to the condemned proposition we draw out from the circumstances, such as the adversary's singular proposition does not have. But the natural and obvious sense of any proposition must be gathered from the circumstances.

For the rest, as I have already noted elsewhere, let these things be said by way of arguing and disputing, not of asserting; for we intend to condemn no one.

Proof of the 5th conclusion. If there were an obligation to refer all works virtually and explicitly to God loved for his own sake, this obligation would be, from its kind, under mortal sin. But the consequent is false, the adversaries themselves admitting it. Therefore the antecedent too. — Proof of the inference of the major. 1° because they ground this obligation in the precept of loving God with the whole heart. But this precept obliges, from its kind, under mortal sin, such that its transgressor in a grave matter sins mortally, as all admit; and here there can be grave matter, as if, for example, a long series of actions in the state of choosing were withdrawn from God and not referred to him loved for his own sake. Therefore. 2° because they again ground this obligation in the natural precept of acknowledging and constituting God as the first principle, and likewise as the ultimate end of all our actions. But the object of this natural precept is in itself grave. Therefore the obligation too is grave, because the obligation of a natural precept follows the nature of its object. 3° I ask the adversaries, on what basis, since God commands that all things be referred to himself loved for his own sake, they say that this precept obliges only under venial sin, while other precepts, whether natural or divine positive, where the object in itself is grave, oblige of themselves and from their kind under mortal sin.

The adversary objects against this proof thus. He who pays great debts, pours out his life for his country, does not withdraw from God a notable thing, since this is granted, but withdraws from God only the relation of a notable thing, which is a slight matter.

I answer. He who does these things without an explicit relation to God, on the adversaries' own principles, withdraws from God a notable thing: 1° because what is done, and is not done for God's sake, is withdrawn from him; 2° because in these grave matters he does not have God as his ultimate end, and clings to a creature; which is a grave matter; 3° because in a grave matter he transgresses the precept of loving God above all things.

He insists: One who had vowed to refer explicitly to God all his deliberate works would not sin mortally by omitting the relation of a notable thing. Therefore similarly.

I answer. 1°. I deny the consequent; because a vow obliges only according to the intention of the one vowing; but the one vowing is not held to have intended to bind himself under mortal sin to the relation of this or that thing, even a notable one. But it is not so with the natural and divine precept of referring all things explicitly to God, if such be granted. 2° Setting aside a contrary intention of the one vowing, I judge it true that one bound by such a vow, who repeatedly and for a long time in grave matters omitted this relation, would sin mortally.

He insists again: According to us, we are bound to refer all our works to God by an implicit virtual relation, by a natural and divine precept, which in grave matter obliges gravely. Therefore he sins mortally who bestows an alms of a thousand florins on the poor out of vainglory; which is false.

I answer. I deny the consequent; because the precept of referring all our works virtually and implicitly to God is not distinct from the precept of not doing evil, as I have already said elsewhere. Hence it obliges according to the quantity of the evil, such that, if the evil is grave, it obliges under mortal sin; if slight, as vainglory is, it obliges under a slight sin. But this cannot be said of the precept of referring all things to God by an explicit virtual relation, if such be granted, as we have already proved above.

What the adversary further objects against this proof will come up again in the solution of the objections.

And these things more than suffice to establish and confirm the opinion, which is the common one of the Catholic schools, as its fourteen approvers in the first edition testify. Wherefore, and lest I detain the reader too long in the Compendio over matters of lesser importance, I here omit certain other proofs from inconvenience.

This one thing only I would like noted, that, according to the adversaries, we are bound to refer all acts by an explicit relation to God out of the love of benevolence, and this by reason of the precept of loving God above all things, and because he is our ultimate end; otherwise it would be to cling to a creature. But when we infer from this that whoever observes the commandments of God from obedience alone, who elicits an act of faith or hope, or acts with a view to the eternal reward, without a further relation to God loved for his own sake, sins — because that act does not refer to God as good in himself, and hence not from the love of benevolence, nor as he is the ultimate end.

They answer to the first, that not every act of benevolence is borne toward God as good in himself; because, according to St. Thomas, to love God with the love of benevolence is to will him good, which is found in the aforesaid acts; to the second, that these acts are referred to God as the ultimate end, in this sense, that they are for his sake, and not for the sake of another.

Against the first: To love God with the love of benevolence is indeed to will him good, but without prejudice to the formal object of this love, which is God good in himself. For the object of love is good. Therefore either man loves God as good for himself, and this is the love of concupiscence, or as good in himself, and this is the love of benevolence. Hence St. Thomas, 2ª 2ae, q. 27, a. 2, ad 1, says that, when the Philosopher defines to love, which is to will someone good, « he defines to love, not setting down the whole formal note of it, but something pertaining to its formal note, in which the act of loving is most manifested. »

Against the second: The ultimate end is the supreme good which is sought for its own sake, and all things for its sake, by reason of which, therefore, according to the adversaries, we ought to refer all our acts to it. Therefore, to induce this obligation, an ultimate end only in a qualified sense, as they explain it, does not suffice.

And these are the chief points contained in what we do not here examine at greater length, and which prove not so much that the adversaries think ill on this score, as that they do not speak consistently with their own principles.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE ADVERSARY ARE OVERTHROWN

The adversary derives the foundations of his opinion from various texts of Saints Augustine and Thomas, which he judges to favor him. Let us, then, examine these.

1° The objections from St. Thomas are answered.

Objection 1°: St. Thomas, in I Sentent., dist. 1, q. 3, a. unico, asking whether use is to be made of all other things besides God, says, 1°: « Punishment is to be used and ordered to an end according as it promotes a man's merit, leading him to a consideration of his weakness, and according as it purges sins. » But the endurance of punishment for a natural and honorable end does not promote a man's merit, nor does it purge sins. Therefore.

2° In the same place, in the second instance, he objects to himself thus: « We use that by which we, tending toward beatitude, are helped. But we are frequently impeded by creatures, etc. Therefore we cannot use all things. » To this argument he replies thus: « To the second it must be said that creatures, as far as they are in themselves, do not impede us from attaining beatitude, but on our part, insofar as we abuse them, resting in them as in an end. » Therefore St. Thomas is treating of such a use of a creature as helps those tending toward beatitude; for he admits as true the major of the argument proposed. But a use of a creature that helps toward beatitude implies an explicit relation; for an implicit one, since it is natural, does not help toward it. Therefore.

3° In the same place, ad 3, he says: « According to the theologian, no act proceeding from a deliberating will is indifferent: for, if it is referred to God, grace being supposed, it is meritorious; but if it is not referable, it is a sin; and if it is referable and is not referred, it is vain. » But an act referable to God is not an evil act, nor an act indifferent as to species; for, since a relation is a circumstance, it presupposes an act already constituted in the species of evil. Therefore it is a morally honest act. Therefore, besides its implicit relation, it needs an explicit one; otherwise, according to St. Thomas, it is vain and idle.

I answer, 1° generally, that St. Thomas in this article intends nothing other than that man can and ought to use creatures and not enjoy them, as he had said of God in the preceding question. Now among the various ways of using creatures, we say that whoever does a good work — for example, one who pays his debts out of love of justice, honors his parents out of piety, without any further relation — uses and does not enjoy the creature, which St. Thomas nowhere denies.

I answer, 2°, likewise generally, that St. Thomas in this article, in order that man not sin in the use of a creature, or in his works, requires only a habitual relation: « Likewise, he says at the end of the body, our works, which are not evil, are from Him and are to be done for His sake: not that every operation must always be actually referred to God, but it suffices that he habitually place the end of his will in God. »

The adversary replies that St. Thomas takes the term habitually for virtually. But on the contrary: although I do not deny that it is sometimes so taken by the holy Doctor, he does not, however, take it so in this article. This is clear from the answer ad 4, where he says that one who sins venially has God habitually as his end — where the term habitually cannot be taken for virtually, since it is certain that a man does not sin by acting for God virtually. Now it is not likely that St. Thomas took the same term in a different sense within the same article.

The adversary insists: St. Thomas, ad 3, says: « If the act is referred to God, grace being supposed, it is meritorious. » But if St. Thomas does not take the term habitually for the term virtually, his answer will have this sense: « If the act is referred to God either actually or habitually, grace being supposed, it is meritorious; » which is false, since a habitual relation does not suffice for merit.

I answer: I deny the minor; for St. Thomas understands this of an inflowing of grace; for an inflow of grace is necessary for merit. But where there is an inflow of grace, there is more than a habitual relation.

And these two general answers would suffice for everything he objects from St. Thomas in the place cited. Yet, over and above, I answer each point individually.

To 1. 1° I distinguish the minor. The endurance of punishment for a natural end does not promote a man's merit, nor does it purge sins actually and formally, I concede; presuppositively, I deny. Now St. Thomas does not say that punishment must be used by actually meriting and purging sins, for an explicit relation would not suffice for that; but that punishment is to be used insofar as it promotes merit, leading a man to a consideration of his weakness, and insofar as it purges sins. Now he who patiently endures, for example, a disease caused by intemperance, or a death to which he has been condemned for homicide, acknowledging that the punishment is due to his crime, uses the punishment insofar as it promotes merit, leading him to a consideration of his weakness and insofar as it purges sins, in the sense that such endurance is presupposed and is prerequisite to actual merit, so that, the other requirements for merit concurring, he would in fact merit.

2° Granted that St. Thomas understands this of a use that is actually meritorious, in this he taught the best way of using punishment, but not the necessary one: unless you wish to hold that every use of punishment that is not meritorious is evil; which is false.

To 2. There is nothing in St. Thomas's answer that militates against our position, unless it be supposed that he admits the major of the argument proposed, not only as true, but also as exclusive of every other way of using creatures; which the adversary does not prove, nor will he prove, except by understanding it, as above, of a use of a creature that helps, presuppositively, those tending toward beatitude.

To 3. I deny the minor as to the second part, and its proof, because in acts indifferent as to species, the circumstance of the end confers on them a first moral species in the individual, as is taught in tract. de Actibus humanis. Moreover, St. Thomas does not say that he who does not refer a referable act simply sins, but that his act is vain, idle, and sinful: which cuts the throat of the adversaries' position, if it be understood of an explicit relation; for they deny that an act is evil and sinful by the defect of an explicit relation.

Objection 2°: the text of St. Thomas in II Sentent., dist. 40, q. 1, a. ult., ad 7, to which I fully replied in the first and second editions of this question. And since the adversary replies nothing other than what D. Hagens said, for the answer let our Vindiciae be consulted, p. 36, 43 and the following.

Objection 3°: St. Thomas, in IV Sentent., dist. 31, q. 2, a. 2, which is found in q. 49 Suppl., a. 5, in the answer ad 1, says that « offspring, insofar as it is a good of the sacrament, adds something beyond offspring insofar as it is a good intended by nature. For nature intends offspring insofar as the good of the species is preserved in it; but in offspring, according as it is a good of the sacrament of matrimony, it is understood, beyond this, that the offspring received be further ordered to God. And therefore it is necessary that the intention of nature, which intends offspring, be referred, in act or in habit, to the intention of offspring insofar as it is a good of the sacrament; otherwise one would rest in the creature, which cannot be without sin. And therefore, when nature alone moves toward the marital act, one is not wholly excused from sin, except insofar as the movement of nature is further ordered, in act or in habit, toward offspring insofar as it is a good of the sacrament. » Now the implicit relation, which is already presupposed in the conjugal act itself duly performed for the sake of offspring and of fidelity, cannot be understood by the habitual relation, since St. Thomas requires another beyond that one. Therefore he requires an explicit one.

For the solution of this argument, the doctrine of the article cited must be set forth. In the first place, St. Thomas in the body of the article says that, « just as the goods of matrimony, insofar as they are habitual, make matrimony honorable and holy; so also, insofar as they are in the actual intention, they make the act of matrimony honorable, as regards those two goods which concern its act. » Now the two goods that concern the act of matrimony are offspring and fidelity. And therefore St. Thomas adds: « Hence, when spouses come together for the sake of procreating offspring, or in order to render the debt to one another, which pertains to fidelity, they are wholly excused from sin. »

Nothing else, therefore, is required for the act of matrimony to be wholly excused from sin, than the intention of offspring, or of fidelity, without any evil circumstance. And the holy Doctor subjoins the reason, namely that the third good, which is the good of the sacrament, does not pertain to the act, but to the essence of matrimony: « But the third good, he says, does not pertain to the use of matrimony, but to its essence, as has been said. Hence it makes matrimony itself honorable, but not its act. »

This doctrine must be reconciled with the answer ad 1, which is objected against us. If St. Thomas necessarily requires an explicit relation to the good of the sacrament, in order that spouses be wholly excused from all sin: then not only the good of offspring and of fidelity, but also the good of the sacrament pertains to the conjugal act; and it renders honorable not only matrimony itself, but also its act; which St. Thomas expressly denies. Likewise, spouses coming together only for the sake of offspring or of fidelity would not be wholly excused from sin; which St. Thomas expressly affirms.

It must therefore be said that, in the answer ad 1, by the habitual relation to the good of the sacrament, he does not understand that explicit relation of the adversaries, but the relation implicit in the conjugal act itself duly performed for the sake of offspring or of fidelity, without any vitiating circumstance.

But, says the adversary, a habitual relation is already supposed in the conjugal act for the sake of offspring or of fidelity. Therefore St. Thomas requires something else. — I answer: I distinguish the antecedent. A habitual relation is already supposed in the conjugal act for the sake of offspring or of fidelity, if no circumstance vitiates it, I concede; if some circumstance vitiates it, as it can easily be vitiated, especially in this matter, I deny. For since in that case it is not referred to God, neither is it referred to the good of the sacrament.

Add that, if St. Thomas understood the habitual relation as explicit, it would follow that, without it, not only would the spouses simply sin, but that their act would be evil; for the holy Doctor says, ad 1, that « the act is not wholly excused from sin, except insofar as the movement of nature is further ordered, in act or in habit, toward offspring, according as it is a good of the sacrament. » Which indeed overturns the adversaries' system.

Nor should you say that St. Thomas foresaw this objection, because at the end of the answer he says: « Nor does it follow, however, that the movement of nature is evil, but that it is imperfect, unless it is further ordered to some good of matrimony. » For the movement toward the act is one thing, the act itself another. The movement of nature toward the act can be not evil, but only imperfect, and yet the act itself be vitiated by some circumstance which impedes the habitual relation that it requires, and therefore be evil. And indeed, who can reconcile these two: that the act is not wholly excused from sin, and that the act is not evil?

Objection 4°: St. Thomas, q. de Charitate, a. 11, asking whether all are bound to perfect charity, ad 2, says: « That all things be virtually referred to God pertains to the perfection of charity, to which all are bound. » Now that virtual relation cannot be understood of an implicit relation, because it does not pertain to the perfection of charity, and because St. Thomas says in the same place that by it a man can merit in all things, if he has charity; but by an implicit relation he will not be able to merit. Therefore he understands it of an explicit relation.

I answer that St. Thomas here, by the virtual relation, understands indeed an explicit relation, but one implied in an act of strict charity, or in its equivalent, namely in the benevolent love of God above all things, by which, as he teaches in II Sentent., dist. 28, q. 1, a. 3, the precept of charity is fulfilled: « For whenever, he says in II Sentent., dist. 40, q. unica, a. 5, ad 6, someone thinks to direct his whole self to the love of God, then whatever pertains to himself will be ordered to God. » Now it is certain that by the love of God above all things, a man, if he has charity, can merit, and that this love can be elicited by a sinner not yet justified, that is, not having charity, as we prove concerning attrition in tract. de Poenit.

Objection 5°: St. Thomas, q. 22 de Charitate, a. 2, says: « Just as in the demonstrative sciences a conclusion is not rightly drawn except by resolution to the first principles, so the appetite of a rational creature is not right, except through an explicit appetite for God Himself, in act or in habit. »

I answer, 1°, that St. Thomas in this article resolves that all beings desire God — inanimate and non-cognitive things implicitly, the rational creature explicitly. Hence here he takes the explicit appetite, not as it implies a distinct knowledge of God, but as it is opposed to the innate appetite of inanimate things, and therefore he adds, « through an explicit appetite for God Himself, in act or in habit. »

I answer, 2°. Granted that by the explicit appetite St. Thomas understands a distinct knowledge of God, he says that a non-explicit appetite is not right, not because it is evil, but because it is not perfect. This is evident from the text itself. For if someone draws a legitimate conclusion from immediate principles, although he does not resolve it to the first principles, that conclusion will be good, but not perfect. Therefore, likewise, whoever desires some particular good on account of its honorableness, although not explicitly on account of God, the appetite will not be evil, but nevertheless imperfect: otherwise it would have to be said, not only that the agent sins, but also that his act is evil; which the adversaries do not admit.

You will insist: St. Thomas, 1a 2ae, q. 19, a. 10, o, says: « In order that someone will some particular good with a right will, it is necessary that that particular good be willed materially, and the common divine good be willed formally. »

I answer that even in our opinion the common divine good is willed formally; for he who wills some particular good, wills it formally on account of goodness and honorableness as such, which is God.

Objection 6°: St. Thomas, 1a 2ae, q. 21, a. 4, ad 3, says: « The whole of what man is, and what he can do and has, must be ordered to God. And therefore every act of man, good or evil, has the character of merit or demerit before God, as far as concerns the very character of the act. » But this cannot be understood of an implicit relation, otherwise the character of merit before God would be founded on the powers of nature alone. Therefore, of an explicit one.

I answer: I deny the minor. To the proof, I distinguish. The character of merit improperly so called, and unto a temporal reward, would be founded on the powers of nature alone, I concede; of merit properly so called, and unto an eternal reward, I deny. Now in these articles, says Sylvius, the discourse is not precisely about the merit of eternal life, or about merit with respect to everlasting life, but merit is understood generally, insofar as merit is said to be everything that makes some reward due in some manner, whether temporal or eternal, whether due from justice properly so called or from some other. Thus the most celebrated Doctor of Louvain.

You will insist: St. Thomas, 1a 2ae, q. 102, a. 6, ad 7, says: « A heavenly intention ought to be joined to all our works. » But an implicit relation is not heavenly. Therefore.

I answer, 1°. I distinguish the minor. An implicit relation is not explicitly heavenly, I concede the minor; implicitly, I deny the minor. 2°. Granted that it must be understood as heavenly explicitly, St. Thomas intends nothing else by these words than what he says elsewhere, namely that all things must be referred to God explicitly, not immediately in themselves, but mediately in their cause, namely in an act of charity, when its precept obliges; but it does not oblige always. — See the first conclusion, likewise the first and second proof of the second conclusion. 3° If you contend that the heavenly intention must be understood as applying to individual acts immediately in themselves, I distinguish the major. It must be joined to all our works in order to eternal life, I concede; in order to mortal goodness, I deny. « For, says the holy Doctor, in cap. XIV Rom., lect. 3, cited in the second proof of the second conclusion, when an unbeliever, by the dictate of reason, does some good, not referring it to an evil end, he does not sin. »

I add that St. Thomas there is treating only of the faithful who worship the true God; and so the adversaries' opinion cannot be founded on this saying of his, since they bind even unbelievers by the precept of referring all their works explicitly to God loved for His own sake.

Objection 7°: St. Thomas, 2a 2ae, q. 83, a. 14, o, says: « We can speak of prayer in two ways: in one way, according to itself; in another way, according to its cause. Now the cause of prayer is the desire of charity, from which prayer ought to proceed. This indeed ought to be continual in us, either in act or in virtue; for the virtue of this desire remains in all that we do from charity. Now we ought to do all things for the glory of God, as is said in I ad Cor., X, 31. And accordingly, » that is, because and insofar as we ought to do all things for the glory of God, « prayer ought to be continual. » Hence Augustine says, ad Probam, Epist. 130¹, c. 9, n. 18: « In faith itself and hope and charity, with continued desire, we always pray. » From which it is argued thus: St. Thomas founds the obligation of continual prayer on the precept of the Apostle: Do all things for the glory of God. Therefore on an explicit relation; because only through this can prayer be continual. — Proof of the antecedent. St. Thomas says: « And accordingly, » namely because and insofar as we ought to do all things for the glory of God, prayer ought to be continual. Therefore.

I answer: I deny the antecedent. To the proof, I deny the exposition of the text, and I say that the phrase accordingly refers to the desire of salvation, and not to the precept of the Apostle. If one attends to the cause of salvation, says Sylvius in his exposition of this article, which is the desire of salvation and of salutary things, from which prayer ought to proceed, it is fitting that prayer be lasting, indeed continual; because such a desire ought to be perpetual in the Christian man, for himself and for others, at least virtually. Thus the excellent interpreter of St. Thomas. And this is clear from the very text of Augustine which St. Thomas cites. For Augustine does not say: « In acts of faith and hope and charity, » but: « In faith itself and hope and charity, with continued desire, we always pray. » And otherwise it would follow that a man, even one endowed with charity, when he was doing nothing, or acting with a distracted mind, doing nothing actually for the glory of God, would fail in prayer, and so would not pray continually, which is foreign to the sense of St. Thomas. Moreover, St. Thomas, 1a 2ae, q. 100, a. 10, o, and elsewhere, understands the text of the Apostle of strict charity. But the adversaries do not wish their relation to be from strict charity. Therefore St. Thomas does not favor them.

2° The objections from Augustine are answered.

Objection 1°: St. Augustine, lib. I de Trinit., c. 13, n. 31, says: « That vision of God whereby we shall contemplate the incommunicable and, to human eyes, invisible substance of God... is alone our supreme good, for the sake of attaining which it is commanded that we do whatever we rightly do. » Therefore an implicit relation does not suffice for St. Augustine. — Proof of the consequent. A deed rightly done, and vitiated by no evil circumstance, is implicitly referred to God. But nevertheless, according to St. Augustine, we are commanded to do this very right deed for the sake of attaining the supreme good. Therefore it must be further referred.

I answer that Augustine takes the precept in a broad sense, as a counsel of that which is good and best; otherwise it would follow that whoever acted rightly from some motive other than that of attaining beatitude, even a supernatural one, would sin.

Nor should you say, with the adversary, that the sense of Augustine is not that in every action we must formally intend eternal beatitude and refer all our works to it, but that it is enjoined on us that in every act we tend toward it, referring it to God. For it is to the contrary that Augustine most formally says that we are commanded to do whatever we rightly do for the sake of obtaining beatitude. But what is it to do everything we do for the sake of obtaining beatitude, except to intend beatitude formally and to refer all our works to it?

Or it must be said that St. Augustine, by this phrase, wishes nothing other than that we ought in every work to have God as our ultimate end. Now he has God as his ultimate end who, while doing a work good from its object, does not taint it with any evil circumstance or any evil end.

And unless you understand Augustine in one or the other of these senses, you will not be able to reconcile him with himself. For the Holy Doctor teaches, lib. de Spiritu et litt., c. 27, n. 48², and elsewhere, that certain works of unbelievers, even the end being taken into account, are to be praised, although they were not done for the sake of obtaining eternal beatitude, nor explicitly referred to God.

You will object 2°: St. Augustine, lib. XIX de Civit., c. 25, concerning the virtues of an unbelieving man, says: « The virtues which he seems to himself to have..., unless he has referred them to God, are themselves vices rather than virtues... When they are referred to themselves, and are not sought for the sake of anything else, even then they are puffed up and proud, and therefore are to be judged not virtues, but vices. » But now, while virtues are sought for their own sake, there is, according to us, a virtual implicit relation to God. Therefore.

I answer 1° that this objection must be resolved by the adversaries themselves. For they do not hold that the works of unbelievers, without their explicit virtual relation, are sins and vices, as Augustine here says, but only that the unbeliever sins by not referring [his acts] to God.

The adversary replies that these virtues of unbelievers are, according to Augustine, vices, not by taking "vice" for the action considered in itself, but for the complex made up of the action and the omission, according to the common manner of speaking: thus, for example, we say of a servant who has fulfilled only half of the work enjoined on him, that he has done badly; yet no one infers that he sinned by working.

But on the contrary: Augustine did not say that unbelievers sin in these virtues, but that these virtues are vices and sins. Therefore, just as, if I were to say of a servant who has fulfilled only half of the work enjoined on him, that his labor is bad, this, according to the common manner of speaking, would be understood of the labor considered in itself, and not of the complex; so likewise in our case. And this is the more evidently clear from the fact that Augustine calls these virtues of unbelievers « puffed up and proud. » Nor should you say, with the adversary, that they are so called by Augustine for this reason, that, since they were not sought for God's sake, they deprived him of his due honor. For he who steals or fornicates defrauds God of his due honor far more than he who does not explicitly refer a good action to him, and yet this thief or fornicator is not said to be puffed up and proud.

I answer 2°. I distinguish the minor. While virtues are sought for their own sake, there is a virtual implicit relation to God, if one does not ultimately rest in them, I concede the minor; if one ultimately rests in them as in true beatitude, I deny the minor. And it is in this sense that Augustine speaks, as is clear from the words immediately following: « For, he says, it is not from the flesh, but above the flesh, that makes the flesh live; so it is not from man, but above man, that makes man live blessedly. » Augustine, then, here alludes to the Stoics, who placed their beatitude in the moral virtues, and of whom he speaks thus, serm. 156³, c. 7: « There were, moreover, other proud men who, as it were removing themselves from the flesh, and placing the whole hope of their beatitude in their soul, placed the highest good in their own virtue... Such were the philosophers who were called Stoics... The Epicurean said: « For me, to enjoy the flesh is the good. » The Stoic said: « For me, to enjoy my own mind is the good. » The Apostle said, Psal. LXXII, 28: For me, to cleave to God is the good. » We confess, however, that virtues thus ultimately sought for their own sake are not true virtues, but vices; inasmuch as by this evil intention the virtual relation to God is intercepted, and one clings to the creature, enjoying it. But if the will is borne toward a work good from its object, not ultimately clinging to it, nor twisting it back toward itself or toward some other evil end, but as it is a good begun and constituted in its own degree according to right reason; we say that it is morally good, and that the agent does not sin, because he virtually and implicitly intends God as the perfection and consummation of this begun good.

The adversary insists: Augustine, in the passage cited from de Civit., treats no more of the Stoics than of the Turks, but treats generally of all those among whom there is no true religion.

I answer that the adversary here speaks contradictions. For if Augustine treats generally of all among whom there is no true religion, then he also treats of the Stoics, among whom there was no true religion, and more so than of the Turks, who did not yet exist at that time; just as, if I were now to treat generally of all among whom there is no true religion, I would without doubt be treating of the Turks, among whom there is no true religion. And just as it does not imply a contradiction that one who was treating generally of all unbelievers should at times turn his discourse to the Turks; so nothing prevents Augustine, while treating generally of unbelievers, from having spoken of the Stoics in particular, the occasion being given. And that this is so is clear from the fact that in both places he keeps the same manner of speaking. In lib. de Civit. he calls the virtues of unbelievers « puffed up and proud; » in serm. 156 he calls the Stoics « proud. » In lib. de Civit. he says: « For it is not from the flesh, but above the flesh, that makes the flesh live; so it is not from man, but above man, that makes man live blessedly. » These words openly express the dogma of the Stoics, in conformity with what he says of them in the sermon cited: « There were, moreover, he says there, other proud men who, as it were removing themselves from the flesh, and placing the whole hope of their beatitude in their soul, placed the highest good in their own virtue... Such were the philosophers who were called Stoics. »

Nor should you say, with the adversary, that the sense of these words in lib. de Civit.: « For it is not from the flesh, etc. » is not that unbelievers thought that beatitude consisted in virtues referred to themselves and not to God, but that they thought these virtues merely conduced to beatitude.

On the contrary, 1°, standing on Augustine's own parallel. Just as, concerning matter disposed for life, although it conduces to life, it is not said, according to Augustine, to make [something] live, but God alone; so neither, concerning a virtue conducing to the blessed life, is it said, according to the same Augustine, to make [one] live blessedly, but God alone. 2° Augustine expressly teaches in the sermon that the Stoics placed their beatitude in their own virtue. Why should he not have the same sense in lib. de Civit., where he keeps the same manner of speaking? 3° Finally, according to some, it can be answered that St. Augustine, in lib. de Civit., condemns those who sought virtues indeed for their own sake, yet not precisely according to themselves and as abstracted from the subject, but in the concrete and as [existing] in the subject, namely, that they might appear virtuous. If you infer: Therefore they were sought not only for their own sake, but for the sake of something else. I answer that they were sought only for their own sake in the concrete and as [existing] in the subject, and in this sense, not for the sake of anything else.

Moreover, unless you understand Augustine in one or the other sense, I do not see how it could be saved from the condemnation of this proposition: «All the works of infidels are sins, and the virtues of philosophers are vices.» Nor should you say, with the adversary, that St. Augustine elsewhere admits that the works of infidels can be good. For even the very authors of the condemned proposition did not deny that the works of infidels could in some sense be called good, and nevertheless they were condemned.

You will object 3°: St. Augustine, book I de Doct. christ., c. 22, n. 21, says: «This rule of love was divinely established, Levit., XIX, 18; Deuter., VI, 5; Matth., XXII, 37, 39: «You shall love, he says, your neighbor as yourself. God, however, with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind, so that you may direct all your thoughts, and your whole life, and your whole understanding toward him, from whom you have the very things you direct.» But when he says, with the whole heart, with the whole mind, he leaves no part of our life that ought to be empty and, as it were, give room for it to wish to enjoy some other thing; but whatever else that is to be loved comes into the mind, let it be swept thither, whither the whole impulse of love runs.» Therefore, according to Augustine, all things are to be referred to God, in such a way that no part of our life is left which ought to be empty and, as it were, give room for it to wish to enjoy some other thing. But what it is to enjoy some thing, Augustine expressed, ibid., c. 4, n. 4: «To enjoy is to cling with love to some thing for its own sake; but to use is to refer what has come into use to obtaining that which you love.»

I answer that all these things are verified according to our opinion: first in an act of charity, while the precept urges; then, even outside the case in which the precept urges, in every good act vitiated in no part. For since it is sought formally explicitly on account of the particular moral goodness of this act, it is sought virtually explicitly on account of moral goodness as such, which, since in reality it is God, is sought virtually implicitly on account of God, and so it is not to enjoy that thing, but to use it.

Against this second answer the adversary rises up, from Augustine, ibid., c. 22, n. 20, when he had said: «Those things alone are to be enjoyed which we have called eternal and unchangeable.» He adds: «But the rest are to be used, so that we may be able to arrive at the enjoyment of those things.» But a virtual implicit relation, since it is natural, does not lead to the enjoyment of God. Therefore, 2°, St. Augustine, ibid., c. 22, n. 20, speaks thus: «It is asked whether a man is to be loved by another man for his own sake, or for the sake of something else. For if for his own sake, we enjoy him; if for the sake of something else, we use him. But it seems to me that he is to be loved for the sake of something else.» Therefore, according to Augustine, to love one's neighbor for his own sake, that is, on account of his particular goodness, is not to refer one's act sufficiently to God, since to love in this way is not to use one's neighbor, but to enjoy him.

I answer to 1. In the first place, Augustine did not say that the rest are to be used insofar as this use leads to happiness, but that the rest are to be used so that we may be able to arrive at happiness. Now he who performs a good act vitiated in no part uses creatures in such a way that, other things being applied, he can arrive at happiness; for it is necessary, in order to attain it, that he perform good and not evil acts, although these alone do not suffice. But even if Augustine had said that this use ought to lead to happiness, nothing would stand in the way; because it truly does lead to it, not indeed positively, but presuppositively and negatively: presuppositively, because, as I have already said, it is a prerequisite for the attainment of happiness that the act be morally good and vitiated in no part; negatively, because by performing morally good acts, one does not sin, and thus removes an impediment to happiness — which I call concurring negatively.

To 2. I distinguish Augustine's proposition and the consequence at the same time. If we love a man for his own sake, setting up our end in him, we enjoy him, I concede; not setting up our end in him, I deny. This solution or explanation is not mine, but Augustine's own, who in the same book, c. 33, n. 37, says: «But if you cling and remain [in the delight of a creature], placing in it the end of your joy, then you must truly and properly be said to enjoy it.» It is required, therefore, according to Augustine, that we be said to enjoy a creature, that we place our end in it. Now, he who performs a morally good act vitiated in no part — for example, one who, without the admixture of any evil circumstance, loves his parents, friends, upright men, moved by the particular moral goodness of this legitimate love — in no way sets up his end in those objects, but in moral goodness itself as such, which in reality is God. And let these things once said from Augustine suffice for the adversary's often-repeated instances drawn from the use and enjoyment of creatures.

You will object 4°: St. Augustine, book IX de Trinit., c. 7, n. 12, and c. 8, n. 13, says: «No one does anything willingly which he has not first said in his heart. This word is conceived by love, whether of the creature, or of the Creator... Therefore either by cupidity, or by charity. Not that the creature is not to be loved, but if that love is referred to the Creator, it will no longer be cupidity, but charity. For then it is cupidity, when the creature is loved for its own sake. Then it does not help him who uses it, but corrupts him who enjoys it.»

I answer that St. Augustine there takes charity in a broad sense, for the love of moral good, as is customary with him. Thus, book I de Grat. Christi et de Peccato orig., c. 21, n. 22: «As though, he says, a good will were something other than charity.» In Psal. CXXXVI: «It is charity itself which is called a good will.» And book VIII de Trinit., c. 10, n. 14: «What is love or charity..., but the love of good?» Thus, then, according to Augustine, the love of a creature — for example, of parents, of a wife, of children — according to the dictate of right reason, is charity in the sense stated, and is referred to God. But the love of a creature, by setting up one's end in it, or by infecting that love with an evil circumstance or an evil end, is cupidity; because it is not referred to God, not even virtually. Nor indeed can it be said that the love of parents, according to the dictate of reason, vitiated by no circumstance, is cupidity; because then not only would the one loving sin, but his love, being cupidity, would be evil — which can be said neither according to Augustine, nor according to the adversaries.

The adversary insists: Augustine, book III de Doct. christ., c. 10, n. 16, defining charity, says: «I call charity a movement of the soul toward enjoying God for his own sake, and oneself and one's neighbor for the sake of God.» Therefore.

I answer that we do not deny that Augustine often takes charity in the strict sense; but it cannot be denied that he also often takes it in the broad sense, for the love of good, as we have seen. Besides, the adversaries do not hold that we are bound to refer our works to God out of strict charity. To what purpose, then, do they press strict charity from Augustine?

Finally, if the first text of Augustine, and what the adversary appends to it, num. 238, saying, «whatever is done, is done by the love either of the creature or of the Creator, and consequently by cupidity or by charity,» if these, I say, are understood of strict and supernatural charity, in such a way that everything which is not from strict charity is from vicious cupidity, the following condemned propositions immediately arise. The first: «There are only two loves from which all our volitions and actions are born: the love of God, which does all things for God's sake, and which God rewards, and the love by which we love ourselves and the world, which does not refer to God what ought to be referred to him, and on this very account becomes evil.» This is 44 among the Quesnellian propositions. The following ones down to 59 are akin to it. The second: «Every love of a rational creature is either the vicious cupidity by which the world is loved, which is forbidden by John, or that praiseworthy charity by which God is loved as poured forth in the heart through the Holy Spirit.» This is 38 among the Baian propositions. The third: «Every deliberate human action is the love either of God or of the world: if of God, it is the charity of the Father; if of the world, it is the concupiscence of the flesh, that is, it is evil.» This is 7 among those condemned by Alexander VII.

You will object 5°: Augustine, book IV contra Iulian., c. 3, n. 21, addressing Julian, says: «Know that virtues are to be distinguished not by their duties, but by their ends. Now duty is that which is to be done, while the end is that on account of which it is to be done. When, therefore, a man does something in which he does not seem to sin, if he does not do it on account of that on account of which he ought to do it, he is convicted of sinning.» And below: «But whatever good is done by a man, and is not done on account of that on account of which true wisdom prescribes it be done, is, by that very fact of not having a right end, a sin.» Likewise below, n. 30, when Julian asks whether, if a pagan has clothed a naked man, it is a sin merely because it is not from faith, he answers: «Assuredly, insofar as it is not from faith, it is a sin — not because the deed itself, namely clothing the naked, is a sin, but because not to glory in the Lord concerning such a deed, only the impious man denies to be a sin.» From these it is evident that it is not enough for Augustine, in order that the agent not sin, that his work be good from its object, but further it is required that it be referred to God by another, further relation, which further relation can be nothing other than a virtual explicit one.

Before I answer, I observe that St. Augustine infers from these principles against Julian, that the works of infidels are sins, and their virtues vices. If, therefore, Augustine understood these things in such a way that an explicit relation is necessary, without which a man performing a work good from its object sins, as the adversaries understand and wish, they must admit that this inference, namely: «All the works of infidels are sins,» is of Augustine's mind, or confess that Augustine reasoned badly. They admit neither. It is therefore necessary that they confess that they do not understand the legitimate sense of Augustine. But what the legitimate sense of the holy Doctor is, we have set forth in good light in Diss. III de Gratia, a. 3, § 2, in our larger Work. And so now

I answer 1° that Augustine does not take these words, «not with a right end, not to glory in the Lord,» and similar ones, contradictorily or negatively, but contrarily, as though he were saying: To glory in something other than the Lord, and to act from a perverse end, is a sin — so that, that is, an affirmation is to be understood from a negation. In which sense, in Scripture, I Reg., XVIII, 9, Saul is said not to have looked upon David with right eyes. Thus St. Thomas and Estius interpret Augustine, as we have shown in the place cited de Gratia. And this is manifest from Augustine himself in the same c. 3 cited, n. 32: «Because, he says, they do it not with a faithful, but with an unfaithful will, that is, a foolish and harmful one.» Ibid., n. 22: «Some good things, then, can be done by those who do not do them well, by whom they are done. For it is a good thing that a man in peril be helped, especially an innocent one; but he who does this, if he does it loving the glory of men more than that of God, does not do the good well; because he who does not act with a good will does not do it as a good man. For far be it that a will should be, or be called, good, which glories in others, or in itself, and not in the Lord.»

To the observation prefixed to the answer the adversary falls silent, although it is of the gravest weight. But against the answer he argues thus: Julian never admitted that works referred to an evil end were good. Therefore there was no controversy on this point between Augustine and Julian. — Proof of the antecedent. Augustine says to Julian, ibid., n. 19: «Now you see, I think, that it follows that the prudence of misers, by which they contrive kinds of petty gains, would be true virtue.» From which it is clear that, that virtues referred to an evil end are true virtues, is a consequence which Augustine deduces from Julian's principle, not Julian's own doctrine. Therefore.

I answer, I deny the antecedent. To the proof, I distinguish: That virtues referred to an evil end are true virtues is a consequence which Augustine deduces from Julian's principle, and which Julian denied, I deny; and which Julian did not deny, and which Augustine supposed him to admit, I concede, and I deny the consequence. This is clear both from the text of Augustine cited in our answer, where, in refuting Julian, he shows that works done from an evil end are not good — for why indeed would Augustine have labored over this, if Julian had not admitted that they were good? — and from the very words objected and those that follow. For Augustine says, ibid.: «Now, however, you see, I think, that it follows that the prudence of misers, by which they contrive kinds of petty gains, would be true virtue... Therefore those virtues, base and misshapen by such an end, and therefore in no way genuine and true virtues, nevertheless seem to you both fair, «so that [the words are Julian's] they could sustain loss neither in their name, nor in their kind»...» Then, n. 21: «From which so great an absurdity follows for you, that you are compelled to call it true justice, even when you find avarice as its mistress.» Now Augustine could not have addressed Julian in this way, except by supposing him to admit the consequence which he deduced from his principle. Let there be an example: for instance, a Molinist arguing against a Thomist or an Augustinian, that from the positing of grace efficacious of itself, free will is destroyed, could not say to the Thomist or Augustinian: «Now you see, I think, that it follows that grace efficacious of itself destroys free will. Therefore the destruction of free will by grace efficacious of itself seems to you a true dogma. From which so great an absurdity follows for you, that you are compelled to call a dogma true which is heretical.» The Molinist could not, I say, speak thus, except by supposing the Thomist or Augustinian to admit the consequence, namely that from the positing of grace efficacious of itself free will is destroyed. So it is in our case.

Moreover, St. Thomas, as I have already said, understands Augustine as we do. Behold his words, 2ª 2ae, q. 23, a. 7, ad 1: «Augustine says in book IV contra Iulianum, that the act of an infidel, insofar as he is an infidel, is always a sin, even if he clothes the naked, or does some such thing, ordering it to the end of his infidelity.»

But, says the adversary, St. Thomas does not say that the dispute between Augustine and Julian was about good works referred to an evil end. — I answer that St. Thomas says that Augustine, writing against Julian, speaks of good works referred to an evil end, which is to say that St. Augustine disputed against Julian about works referred to an evil end, especially if attention is paid to what I said in the answer. But St. Thomas did not say only this. In the same reply, ad 1, speaking of the act of an infidel proceeding from a good of nature, not referred to an evil end, he does not say that it is evil, but «good of its kind, yet not perfectly good, because it lacks the due ordering to the ultimate end.» This is our second answer, as we shall soon see. And thus St. Thomas, by the twofold member of his answer, sums up the whole dispute between Augustine and Julian, which was both about the acts of infidels good from their object referred to an evil end, which are therefore evil, and about those acts not referred to an evil end, which are not perfectly good. To St. Thomas, as regards the interpretation of Augustine, I had joined the most celebrated Estius, doctor of Louvain, of whom the adversary is silent.

Finally, that our interpretation is legitimate is further established by this, that Augustine says in the objection that «only the impious man» denies that «not to glory in the Lord» concerning almsgiving is a sin. For if the holy Doctor does not take «not to glory in the Lord» contrarily, for that which is to glory in something other than the Lord and to act from an evil end, but contradictorily, for that which is not to refer explicitly to God, as the adversaries wish, it follows that all who agree with us — that is, almost all Catholic doctors, who deny that it is a sin not to refer a good work virtually explicitly to God — must be called impious; which the adversaries do not admit.

The adversary's answer to this instance seems singular to us. He says that in Augustine's time no Catholic denied the obligation of an explicit relation, but all Catholics agreed in that opinion, and therefore Augustine does not say that it would be impiety to deny it, but that only the impious man denies it. Hence it does not follow that we must now be called impious.

I am mistaken, if this answer does not seem a paradox to everyone, except perhaps the Louvain school. For it is incredible that all the Catholic schools, with the exception, so far as I know, of the Louvain school, should have departed for so many years, in the matter of a divine precept, from the opinion in which all Catholics agreed in Augustine's time, and should have fallen into the opposite error, without the Church, or the supreme Pontiffs, or the bishops raising any objection. It would be pleasant to know where, when, and by what author this error first crept into the Catholic schools.

I answer, 2°, to the principal argument, that works which are without the faith that operates through love, yet from a right natural end, are called by Augustine sins in a broad sense, taking sin for everything that falls short of its end, and lacks the fullness of its perfection, or, as St. Thomas cited above says, for «not perfectly good» — such as are works of this kind, which, since they are not done from charity, are sterile with regard to the kingdom of heaven. In the same sense he says that the virtues of philosophers are not true virtues, but vices; because, although they can be, even if rarely, without an evil end, as Augustine admits, book de Spiritu et Litt., they nevertheless do not lead to eternal life. For Augustine speaks of virtues and good works, not morally and according to the philosophers, but insofar as they are meritorious of the heavenly kingdom, or, as he says in the same chapter 3, n. 33, «by which alone a man can be brought to the eternal gift and kingdom of God.»

Against this answer the adversary argues thus: Julian conceded that his good works were not meritorious of eternal life. Therefore Augustine is not treating them as meritorious.

I answer, I distinguish the consequence. He is not treating them as meritorious, that is, in order to prove that they are not meritorious, I concede: for this Julian conceded; in order to prove that they ought not to be called absolutely good, I deny.

The adversary insists: If St. Augustine had held our opinion, Julian could have answered him that these very works could in some sense be called good; for this is what we say.

I answer that this too is conceded to Julian by Augustine at the end of the chapter, as we shall soon see. And do the adversaries themselves not concede that works of this kind are in some sense good?

The adversary replies: Augustine, ibid., says: «It cannot be that we are good sterilely.» Therefore, if these works are good, they are meritorious.

I answer, I distinguish the consequence. If these works are good with a supernatural goodness, in Augustine's sense, they are meritorious, I concede; if they are good with a merely moral goodness, I subdistinguish. They are meritorious of a temporal reward, I concede; of an eternal one, I deny.

But Augustine himself peremptorily settles the matter at the end of this chapter 3, n. 33, concluding his whole dissertation with Julian in the following words, which the adversary has scarcely touched: «Take this briefly, says the holy Doctor, lest perhaps, since you err in the matters themselves as greatly as it is possible to err, I should seem to be contending with you about words... Since you at least concede that the works of infidels, which seem good to you, do not bring them to eternal salvation and the kingdom; know that we call that good of men, that good will, that good work, incapable of being conferred on anyone without the grace of God which is given through the one Mediator of God and men, by which alone a man can be brought to the eternal gift and kingdom of God. Accordingly, let all the other things which seem among men to have something of praise, seem to you true virtues, seem good works, and done without any sin at all... Let wills of this kind be called, according to you, good trees: it suffices that before God they are barren, and on this account not good.» By these words it is clearer than daylight that St. Augustine contends against Julian for this one thing: that the works and virtues of infidels which are not referred to an evil end are, in this sense, not good, because they fall short of the order of eternal life, and in that sense are called sins and vices, because they lack the fullness of their perfection; but this being granted, he allows that in another sense they may be called good and virtues. Certain lighter objections which are raised from the often-cited chapter 3 I omit, because they are easily resolved from what has been said.

Finally, the adversary concludes and infers that this precept of explicitly referring all one's actions to God is not intolerable, as I had objected, from the fact that a counsel concerning the same relation is not intolerable, as I concede. But the learned man is mistaken. For a counsel concerning a difficult matter can be tolerable, and a precept concerning the same matter intolerable, because a precept binds, a counsel does not. Thus a counsel of perpetual chastity, of religious poverty and obedience, is tolerable; but a precept would be intolerable.

Many other things bearing on this question, and here omitted, are to be sought in the first and second edition of it, printed at Ypres. For here my one purpose was to answer the Reverend Father Maugis.

St. Thomas, 2a 2ae, qq. 2, 3, 4, 5.

In the preceding dissertation we spoke of the ultimate end in general; now we must speak of the special ultimate end of man, which is Beatitude. It is defined by Boethius, III de Consol., prose 2: « A state made perfect by the assemblage of all goods; » by the Author¹: « A perfect good totally quieting and satisfying the appetite, » namely, the rational and ordered.

It can be considered in two ways, objectively and formally. Objective beatitude is that thing in the possession of which the appetite rests; the formal is the very attainment and possession of this thing: thus riches are the objective beatitude of the miser, the possession of them, the formal beatitude, in the way we spoke of the end which and by which.

I say: The objective beatitude of man consists in the uncreated good alone, namely God¹, according to that verse of Psal. LXXII, 25 and 26: What have I in heaven? and besides thee what do I desire upon earth?... God is my portion for ever. Likewise that verse of Psal. XVI, 15: I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear.

Proof 1°. Only the uncreated good can satisfy the appetite of man². Therefore. — Proof of the antecedent. The rational appetite, or will, cannot be satisfied except by its adequate object. But the adequate object of the will is not this or that good, but every good; just as the object of the intellect, which the will follows, is not this or that truth, but every truth. But God alone is every good, of whom all created goods are participations. Whence that verse of Exod., XXXIII, 19: I will shew thee all good. Therefore.

Proof 2°, by going through all created goods³. The beatitude of man does not consist in any created good. Therefore in the uncreated good alone. — Proof of the antecedent. Created goods are of a threefold kind, namely external goods or goods of fortune, goods of the body, and goods of the soul. But none of these can constitute the objective beatitude of man. Therefore.

Not the goods of fortune, which are riches, honor, fame, and power⁴: 1° Because they do not last, but easily slip away. 2° They do not exclude all evils, but are common to the good and the wicked. 3° They do not fully satisfy; for the more they abound, the more they inflame desire, according to that well-known saying: « The more waters are drunk, the more they are thirsted for. » 4° They do not suffice; for to those who have them, many other necessary things can be lacking, such as wisdom, health, etc. 5° From them evil can befall someone, as experience shows. But all these things are repugnant to true beatitude. 6° Finally, they come from external causes; but the beatitude of man is acquired through interior principles, namely the intellect and the will.

Not the goods of the body⁵; because both the being of the body and the other things which depend on the body, such as health, beauty, strength, pleasure, and other things of this kind, are unstable; they are common to the good and the wicked, indeed even to brute animals; nay, brute animals even surpass man in several of these, as deer in speed, lions in strength, etc. The other reasons too, which we brought forward against the goods of fortune, also apply here.

Not the goods of the soul⁶: 1° Not the soul itself considered in itself; for thus it is in potency, namely to knowledge and to virtue. But since potency exists for the sake of act, as for its complement, it is impossible that what is of itself existing in potency should have the character of the ultimate end. Not the other things which pertain to the soul, such as the powers, the acts, or the habits even of the virtues; because these are accidents and finite goods ordainable to God as the ultimate end. And as for the virtues, they do indeed pertain to happiness, but as the way to the goal; but the way is distinguished from the goal. Likewise, happiness is the reward of virtue. Therefore virtue is not happiness itself. Finally, virtue does not satisfy the appetite, but only rectifies it.

Supposing that man's objective beatitude is God, it follows that his formal beatitude is the attainment of God. We ask, therefore, here by what means man attains God, and consequently in what man's formal beatitude essentially consists. Among the various opinions on this question, three are more celebrated: some place man's formal beatitude in the acts of intellect and will together, as do many of the Society of Jesus; some in the act of the will alone, namely either in the love of friendship, as Scotus holds, or in fruition, as others hold; the Thomists, finally, with their Doctor, hic q. 3, place it in the act of the intellect alone.

Before the resolution, it must be observed that beatitude can be considered in two ways: as to state, and as to essence. As to state, it embraces all things that make a man fully blessed as to soul and body and all his powers; and thus it implies love, vision, fruition, joy, perpetuity, impeccability, the glory of the body, etc., and is defined by Boethius: « A state made perfect by the aggregation of all goods. » As to essence, it implies only that which among all these is first conceived, by which the highest good, or objective beatitude, is acquired, and which is the root from which the rest that are assigned flow: thus man, looked at as to state, expresses not only rationality but all the properties flowing from rationality — the capacity for laughter, the faculty of wondering, of speaking, a certain quantity of limbs, color, proportion, etc. But considered precisely and metaphysically as to essence, he expresses only rationality, as that which is first conceived in him as the root and cause of the rest. This question, therefore, is a metaphysical one about beatitude itself as to its quiddity and essence, and it must always be kept before one's eyes that the essence of formal beatitude is nothing other than the attainment of objective beatitude, since it is that by which the beatifying object is united to the subject capable of beatitude. And therefore that action constitutes the essence of formal beatitude which is formally attaining of the ultimate end; but those things which stand in a concomitant or consequent relation to it are its properties and adornments, and pertain to its state.

I say 1°: Formal beatitude does not consist essentially in several acts, namely of intellect and will.

Proof. Formal beatitude is essentially the first attainment of the ultimate end. But this can belong to only one operation alone. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. Several operations of different powers, namely of intellect and will, cannot proceed equally and simultaneously from their powers, but among them there necessarily intervenes an order of priority and posteriority; for the act of the will is subordinated to the act of the intellect and presupposes it, since nothing is willed unless it is first known. Therefore these two acts cannot be equally and simultaneously attaining acts of the ultimate end, but one is prior to the other, namely the act of the intellect, which is prior to and more powerful than the act of the will.

It is confirmed. The act of the will is not attaining, as I will prove in the following conclusion. Therefore.

I say 2°: Formal beatitude does not consist essentially in an act of the will¹.

Proof. Formal beatitude is essentially the attainment of the highest good. But no act of the will is the attainment of the highest good. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. 1° The act of the will is either desire, or love, or fruition and joy. But none of these acts is attaining of the ultimate end, or of the highest good: Not desire, because desire concerns a good that is absent and not yet possessed. Not love: both because love abstracts from presence and absence, for we love a good both present and absent; and because the love of the way and of the homeland are of the same species, but the love of the way is not attaining of the ultimate end. Not fruition or joy, because since fruition is a pleasant rest in a good possessed, it does not effect possession, but follows it; for the will enjoys the good and is delighted in it from the fact that it is present and that it possesses it, whether in reality, or in hope, or in memory, and not conversely does it possess it because it enjoys it and is delighted in it: thus the miser does not attain riches because he enjoys them, but on the contrary he enjoys them because he possesses them.

Proof 2° of the first minor. The will is an inclination toward the good. But an inclination toward the good is not attaining of the good: both because, otherwise, in order to obtain the good, it would suffice to will it, and by this very fact that the miser willed riches, he would have them; and because the effort of the will toward the good is of itself only affective, insofar as the good terminates its affection. But it is effective and possessive through something else: so that, if it is a sensible good, it is possessed through sense, e.g., sound through hearing, color through sight, flavor through taste; if it is a natural good, through natural union, for instance through contact or local non-distance, as a stone at the center; if it is an intelligible good, through the intellect, just as a learned man is said to possess wisdom by the intellect. Therefore. This conclusion will be confirmed still further by what follows.

I say 3°: Man's formal beatitude consists essentially in an act of the intellect, namely the clear vision of God², according to that saying of Ioann., XVII, 3: This is eternal life, that they may know thee, the true God, and that of Aug., lib. LXXXIII Quaestionum, q. 35, n. 2: « What else is it to live happily, than to possess something eternal by knowing it? »

Proof 1°, from the same principle as always. Formal beatitude is essentially the first attainment of the highest good. But this comes about through an act of the intellect, and not of the will. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. 1° The highest good is an intelligible good. But an intelligible good is acquired, not by desiring, but by understanding, just as a sensible good is acquired by sensing. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. Thus the intellective nature stands to the intelligible good, as the sensitive nature stands to the sensible good. But the sensitive nature does not attain nor possess the sensible good through appetite, but through sense, as sound through hearing, flavor through taste, etc. Therefore the intellective nature does not attain the intelligible good through the will, but through the intellect. — Proof 2° of the first minor, from the distinction that exists between the intellect and the will. The intellect is occupied with its object, apprehending it and drawing it to itself, and thus making it effectively present to itself, either through species, or immediately in itself, if it is known without species, as with God; the will, on the contrary, is borne toward an object outside itself, and is only an inclination and a weighing toward it, according to the saying of Aug., lib. XIII Conf., c. 9, n. 10: « My weight is my love; by it I am carried wherever I am carried. » Therefore it belongs to the will to seek things and to rest in them once found, but to the intellect to apprehend, acquire, and possess things. And this is established by experience. For however much the will may strive, it never of itself attains the intelligible good, but as long as it is not known, it is said to be absent, and the will remains restless; but when it is perceived by the mind, the motion of the will comes to rest.

Proof 2°. Since formal beatitude is man's ultimate perfection and the attainment of the highest good, it must be the act of the most excellent power³. But the intellect is a more excellent and nobler power than the will, both because it regards a more abstract and more immaterial object than the will, and because it is closer to the soul itself than the will, since it is the root of the will. Therefore. — But for this reasoning, consult Physicam Thomisticam.

Concerning the question proposed there have been two errors. The first was that of the Millenarians, who, from chapter XX of Apocal. badly understood, taught that Christ, after the universal resurrection of the flesh, would reign with the just for a thousand years before the universal judgment, and before these just would enjoy the vision of God in the heavens.

The authors of this error were Cerinthus the heresiarch and St. Papias the martyr, though in a different sense. Cerinthus, lying that revelations had been made to him by an angel, invented this millenarian kingdom as one to be spent in immoderate and obscene pleasures of the belly and the flesh; that the seat of this kingdom would be the city of Jerusalem, to be built anew, likewise the temple to be restored, the precepts and sacrifices of the Mosaic Law to be renewed, and men to be circumcised in the Jewish manner. Whence his followers were called in Greek Chiliastae, in Latin Millenarii. Papias, however, said that these thousand years were to be spent in the earthly Jerusalem in bodily pleasures indeed, but moderate and licit ones; nor does he make any mention either of the temple, or of the law, or of circumcision, or of sacrifices to be restored.

The other error is attributed to John XXII, Supreme Pontiff, who is said to have held and taught that the purged souls of the saints would not see God face to face, or, as he himself used to say, « facially, » before the general judgment.

I say 1°: The millenarian reign of Christ on earth with the saints is fictitious.

Proof 1° from Scripture. 1° In Matth., XXII, 30, it is said: In the resurrection they shall neither marry, nor be married, but shall be as the angels of God. Therefore the reign of Christ with the saints will not be in carnal pleasures, even moderate ones. 2° The angel foretells that the future reign of Christ will be eternal, Luc., I, 32 and 33: He shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Proof 2° from the Fathers who attacked this error. Caius, a very ancient writer, in Eusebius, book III, ch. 22; Dionysius of Alexandria, in the book de Promiss.; Eusebius, the book III above cited, ch. 33; Jerome, in the Praefat. to book XVIII in Isaiam, and Augustine, book XX de Civit., ch. 7.

Proof 3° by reason. The millenarian reign of Christ on earth with the saints after the general judgment is fictitious, if the saints, immediately after death, once they are fully purged, obtain in heaven the clear vision of God, and in it the highest, unlosable, and eternal beatitude. But such is the case, as will be proved in the following conclusion. Therefore.

You will object 1° the celebrated and obscure passage of the Apocalypsis, where it is read that the just will reign with Christ a thousand years¹. Therefore.

I answer: I deny the consequence, because no mention is made there either of the law, or of circumcision being revived, or of the temple of Jerusalem being restored, as Cerinthus invented; nor of bodily pleasures, even moderate ones, as Papias fabled. And so that passage of the Apocalypsis is understood of the spiritual kingdom which the just carry on and will carry on with Christ throughout that whole interval which intervenes from the death of Christ up to the coming of Antichrist: so that « a thousand years, says Augustine, book XX de Civit., ch. 7, n. 2, he set down for all the years of this age, that by the perfect number the very fullness of time might be signified, » according to the solemn phrase of Scripture which often designates the greatest and indefinite multitude by the number a thousand, as that in Psal. CIV, 8: He hath remembered his covenant for ever: the word which he commanded to a thousand generations, that is, to many generations. Likewise Psal. LXXXIX, 4 and Iob, IX, 3. Augustine, loc. cit., and the most illustrious Bossuet, in Exposit. Apocal., ch. 20, interpret this whole passage in the sense given. See there.

You will object 2° and you will urge the authorities of many Fathers of the first three centuries, Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Lactantius, Severus Sulpitius, and others who defended the millenarian reign of Christ. Therefore.

I answer that the aforesaid Fathers were deceived by apocryphal Sermons of the Lord, which Papias had written down from certain badly understood oral traditions of the Apostles. But when it became known that these sermons were spurious, all the Fathers immediately attacked this opinion about the millenarian reign of Christ.

I say 2°: The souls of the just, released from their bodies and fully purged, immediately obtain their beatitude, namely the clear and facial vision of God.

This is now decided as a matter of faith in the Council of Florence, last session, where it is said, « that souls stripped of their bodies and purged are received into heaven at once, and behold clearly the one and triune God as he is. » The same had been defined earlier by Benedict XII, the successor of John XXII, who had also declared the contrary to be heretical, in the decretal Benedictus Deus.

The Apostle plainly indicates this truth, ad Philip., I, 23, when he says: Having a desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ. For this desire of the Apostle would have been useless, had he not hoped that he would see God immediately after death.

The Holy Fathers teach the same, Fulgentius, serm. de S. Stephano; Cyprian, in the booklet ad Fortunat., ch. 12; Gregory, Sup. Psal. IV poenit.; Chrysostom, hom. X in II ad Cor.; Ambrose, book X in Luc.; Augustine, in Psal. CXIX, and others.

You will object: John XXII defined the contrary to our conclusion. Therefore,

I answer: I deny the antecedent. For although John XXII inclined very strongly to the contrary opinion, and perhaps held and taught it as a private doctor, yet he never defined it as a dogma of faith. This is clear from Benedict XII, his successor, in the Bull Benedictus Deus, in which the Most Holy Pontiff speaks thus: « And when that same predecessor of ours, to whom the determination of the aforesaid matters pertained, was preparing himself for the decision of controversies of this kind, strictly enjoining and commanding, in his public Consistory, both his brethren the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, of whose number we then were, and the Prelates and Masters in Theology, many of whom were present, that concerning the aforesaid matter of the vision, when they should be required by him, each one should deliberately say what he thought; yet, overtaken by death, as it pleased the Lord, he was not able to complete it. »

Add that John XXII himself, in the document of the Canonization of St. Thomas Aquinas, says « that he has been received into the fatherland for perpetual eternities, that his soul possesses heaven, and, placed among the heavenly hosts, glorifies God². » </content>

The essential properties of beatitude are especially love, impeccability, and perpetuity or inamissibility.

You will ask 1° whether those who see God love him necessarily, with a necessity as to exercise.

I answer Upon the beatific vision there follows a happy necessity of loving, even as to exercise. This is the more common opinion, against the Scotists.

Proof There is a necessity of exercise when there does not remain in the will the faculty of suspending the act. But in the sight of God clearly seen there does not remain in the blessed the faculty of suspending love toward him. Therefore. — The minor is proved. There does not remain in the will the faculty of suspending the act when there does not remain an indifference of judgment concerning that act; for the will is a blind power following the lead of the intellect, in whose indifference its freedom is rooted. But in the sight of God clearly seen there does not remain an indifference of judgment concerning him and the exercising of love toward him. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. Through the clear vision of God the intellect proposes God to the will as the highest good, supremely lovable, and love of him as the embrace and enjoyment of a good so great and infinite: nor can it represent it otherwise, since it is immune from error, so that neither in the object nor in the love of it can there appear even a shadow of evil, or of tedium, or of weariness, or of anything in any respect unfitting, or that would impede a greater good. Therefore in the sight of God clearly seen there does not remain an indifference of judgment concerning him and love of him.

You will ask 2° whether the blessed are impeccable intrinsically.

It is certain that the blessed neither sin nor will sin any more. But the question is whether they also lack the faculty of sinning, and whence this impeccability arises. Scotus, with his followers, says that it arises from without, namely from the will and help of God protecting and preserving the blessed from sin. St. Thomas, with his followers, and more commonly, says that it arises from the intrinsic nature of beatitude, namely from the vision and love. With whom

I answer The blessed are absolutely impeccable intrinsically, namely both from the vision of God and from love of him¹.

Proof of the first part. 1° There cannot be sin in the will unless there is in the intellect a defective dictate, either from error, or from ignorance, or from inconsideration, by which it proposes to the will something to be willed here and now which in reality is not to be willed, as being contrary to or falling short of the right and true end. But an intellect clearly seeing God cannot have this defective dictate. Therefore. — The minor is proved. An intellect seeing God clearly sees the highest and total good, necessarily to be loved here and now. But, given such a vision, the intellect cannot apprehend and propose to the will any lovable good against or outside God, that is, without subordination to him and with deficiency from him: otherwise it would no longer apprehend God himself as the highest and total good, since it would apprehend some lovable good outside him; nor would it apprehend him as necessarily to be loved, but with indifference, such that he might be loved or set aside through an incompatible love of some extraneous good deficient from him. Therefore.

Proof of the second part of the answer. Through beatific love, man is turned by a continuous act toward God as toward his ultimate end, and is inseparably united and adheres to him; but through sin, he is actually turned away from God as his ultimate end, or at least deflects, if the sin is venial. But an actual aversion or defection from God cannot stand together at the same time with an actual conversion and adherence to him. Therefore.

From these arguments you have that not only the sin of commission, but also of omission, is incompatible with beatitude, since for this no less than for that a defective dictate is required, and each is against or apart from God.

You will ask 3° whether beatitude, once obtained, is intrinsically perpetual and inamissible.

It is of certain faith, against the error of Origen, that beatitude will endure without end into perpetual eternities. So the Scriptures testify everywhere. Sap., V, 16: But the just shall live for evermore. Ioann., X, 28: I give them life everlasting. Matth., XXV, 46: And these shall go into everlasting punishment: but the just, into life everlasting. And elsewhere many times. And this has been defined in the Lateran Council, under Innocent III, in the chapter Firmiter de SS. Trinit., and all the faithful profess in the Creed « to believe in life everlasting. »

But the question is, as in the foregoing, whether this perpetuity belongs to beatitude intrinsically and from its own nature, as St. Thomas and the Thomists hold; or only intrinsically, from God's concurrence preserving it, as Scotus and the Scotists hold.

I answer The beatitude of the saints is intrinsically perpetual and inamissible. This is the more common opinion, with the Author².

Proof 1°. Beatitude is of itself perfectly satisfying and quieting of man's desire. But man naturally desires to retain the good which he has, and to have the faculty of retaining it. Therefore.

Proof 2°. The beatific vision has of itself no cause by which it could lose its being. Therefore of itself it demands inamissibility. — Proof of the antecedent. The beatific vision can cease only from a threefold cause: 1° on the part of the subject seeing God, because he no longer wishes to see; 2° on the part of God withdrawing that vision; 3° on the part of some created cause corrupting it through the introduction of a contrary form. But it cannot cease: 1° on the part of the seeing subject; because, since that vision actually joins the soul to the fount of all good, the will cannot find in it any insufficiency, or any inconvenience, or any note of evil, by which it might be moved to cease from it; 2° nor on the part of God; because, although God could absolutely annihilate it, yet since the withdrawal of a beatitude once given judicially as a wage and reward is the greatest punishment and the greatest loss, God, according to the exigency of things and his ordinary power, does not inflict any punishment, especially the greatest, except on account of some fault, which, as we proved above, the blessed cannot commit; 3° nor finally on the part of a created agent; because, since through that vision and union which is immediate to God, the mind is raised above all created agents, there is nothing that could act upon it. Therefore.

Seek many other things concerning the beatific vision in Tract. de Deo uno.