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II. To the First Question
A. The Opinion which is Attributed to Peter Lombard
101. As to the first question, the opinion of the Master is said to be that the indwelling Holy Spirit alone, without any intermediate habit informing the will, moves the will to a meritorious act in a way other than he moves it to acts of belief and hope (for he moves it to acts of belief and hope through the medium of the habits of faith and hope), and in this way the Master is said to have denied any created charity.
1. Arguments for the Opinion attributed to Peter Lombard
102. One can argue for this conclusion in two ways.
103. [First way] - The first way is taken from form’s or habit’s imperfection, or from its non-necessity for causing movement.
104. Here the argument goes first as follows: as a natural act is related to a natural or acquired habit, so is the act of an infused habit to an infused habit; but an acquired habit only bestows pleasurable acting and a facility in the power for the act (but it does not give the substance of the act), as is plain from the preceding question [nn.47-51, 88]; therefore in like manner an infused habit bestows only pleasurable acting, or would so bestow it if it were present within. But he who was a sinner before and is now justified does not elicit an act of loving God with pleasure; for resistance by his vices and persistence in good works seem as difficult to him as when he was in his sins, or not much easier, until by battle and victory over his passions he has acquired some contrary habit, and then he will act with pleasure. Therefore the justified sinner has no infused habit, because in that case he would, if it were present in him, act with pleasure.
105. Further, if a supernatural good be shown to a will in its purely natural state, the will would love it well enough because it has the object sufficiently close to it; therefore an infused habit is not required for loving a supernatural good. The proof of the assumption is that if a lesser good when shown to the will has the wherewithal to be loved, then a greater good has it too; therefore if the will in its purely natural state can love something, it can love the supreme good if that good be shown to it.
106. Further, the act of loving that would belong to that supernatural habit would also be supernatural, and so it would be created immediately (for supernatural things are not brought into being by any transition from something, but only by creation), and if the act would be something created then it does not presuppose anything for its creation.
107. Further, a habit can be used when the possessor of it wants to (Averroes above, On the Soul com.18); but no one has experience of being able to use this habit when he wants to; for he cannot, when he wants, elicit with pleasure and ease fervent acts of loving God, - as is plain in the case of contemplatives, who sometimes after some effort experience themselves possessed of great devotion and sometimes after equal effort possessed of a lesser devotion or none.
108. [Second way] - The second way is taken from the fact that without a habit the Holy Spirit suffices for causing motion.
109. Here the argument goes first as follows: the first cause can do of itself what it can do along with a second cause when the second cause is only an agent cause (or the major is taken this way: ‘the first cause can do of itself whatever it can do with a second cause that is not part of the essence of the thing’; I add this because of the form and matter in a composite thing, - for God cannot make a composite thing without the intrinsic parts that compose it); but a habit, if it is present within, does not have a necessary causality with respect to its acts save after some manner of agent causality (plainly at least not after the manner of a formal cause, or of a material cause ‘about which’ [Prologue n.188]); therefore its causality is extrinsic. Therefore whatever the Holy Spirit can cause in the act along with the habit, he can cause without the habit; plurality without necessity should, it seems, not be posited,23 because it is superfluous, -therefore, etc.
110. Further, in order for a will possessed of a habit to act in accordance with the habit, the cooperation of the Holy Spirit is necessary, otherwise he would not be the first cause in every action of creatures; but he does not cooperate because the will has the habit, because then a created will would use the Holy Spirit as a second cause, and the Holy Spirit would not be the first but the second cause with respect to the will that has the habit, because he would be determined by the will’s habit to act along with the will; therefore, on the contrary, because he cooperates with the will therefore the will operates in accordance with the habit. But the Holy Spirit can cooperate as equally with a will - in the first instant of its nature - that has the habit of charity as with a will that does not have it; therefore etc.
111. Further, the Son of God was thus united to our nature, because he was doing the works of that nature in such a way that the acts were truly said to belong to the Son of God as to the acting supposit; and yet there was by this fact no derogation from the assumed nature that prevented it being also the principle of its own operations. Therefore, by an argument from similars, the Holy Spirit can be in some way united to the will such that he himself does the works of the will without there being by this fact any derogation from the nature of the will in its idea as an operative power that would prevent it being able to be the principle of its own operations.
112. Further, the intellect is more passive than the will, and less active; therefore it is more in need of something to activate it so that it has power for its own act. But the intellect is posited as being capable, without any form informing it, of the beatific vision by the mere fact that the essence of God is as it were present to it by way of form [n.193]; therefore much more can the will be capable, without any form informing it, of every one of its acts by the fact that the Holy Spirit is for it as it were the form for performing acts of love.
2. Arguments against the Opinion attributed to Peter Lombard
113. Against this conclusion, whether it be according to the intention of the Master or not, one can argue in two ways assumed from the faith: the first is taken from the justification of the sinner or from divine acceptance, and this without any elicited act, - the second is taken from the nature of a meritorious act.
114. [First way] - From the first way the argument goes first as follows: the sinner before repentance is unjust, after repentance just, in the way the Scripture calls the sinner ‘unjust’ and him who has been freed from sin ‘just’. - From this the argument runs: injustice, since it is formally a privation, cannot be taken away from anyone unless the opposite habit is given to him, because ‘to deprive of a privation’ is to put a habit in its place, for opposites are immediate in the case of a subject naturally fitted for them (Metaphysics 10.4.1055a33, 55b3-6); the soul is naturally fitted to receive justice; therefore the one who is justified, having been made just from being unjust, receives the habit opposite to the privation; for if there were nothing formally more present in him now than before, he would not more lack the privation now than he lacked it before.
115. Further, a sinner before repentance is not worthy of eternal life, but after repentance he is worthy of eternal life; but he is not worthy save by something formally inhering in him to which, according to the rules of divine justice, it is judged that eternal life should be given, and he had nothing of this sort before; therefore something positive is in the just man formally, by which he is worthy of eternal life.
116. Further, God does not accept a sinner for eternal life, but he does accept him who has been justified. I ask then what it is ‘to accept for eternal life’? It is not ‘to will -with the will of being well pleased - to beatify him for the present now’, because then God would immediately beatify him; therefore it is ‘to will that person- in accord with the disposition he now has - to be worthy of such a reward’ whom before God did not will to be worthy of such a reward. The difference here cannot, as it seems, be posited in the divine will, because nothing is new there, for the divine will is immutable; therefore it is because of a difference on the part of the person, because the divine will wants any person disposed in the same way to be disposed in the same way.
117. The confirmation of this reason [n.116] is that divine volition, because it is in itself one act, does not have the idea of opposed or distinct acts - as acts of willing and not willing - in the absence of any distinction in the connoted objects; for this ‘divine willing’ is not some willing of being well-pleased - and likewise not some not willing -unless the objects are distinct, otherwise contradictories will be true without any distinction to cause that truth; therefore, since God wills the justified person for some being for which he does not will the sinner, on account of which difference he is said in Scripture ‘to love the just’ and ‘to hate sinners’ [Proverbs 15.9; Ecclesiastes 12.3, 7; Psalm 5.7], the consequence is that this difference - according to its idea on the part of the divine volition - necessarily requires an actual distinction on the part of the objects themselves. Therefore the person in question is disposed in himself in one way when he is said to be ‘beloved of God’ or ‘accepted for eternal life’ but in another way when he is ‘hated’.
118. Lastly there is, according to this first way, an argument as follows, that if there is in the soul of this person nothing after repentance other than what was there before, it does not seem that his soul is disposed any differently toward God, nor God toward him, because this difference does not seem to be on account of any change that has happened on the part of God. Therefore if it be conceded, as seems necessary, that he be in some way differently disposed toward God, and conversely God toward him, then this is because of a change in him, - and so something will come to be formally in him de novo; but faith and hope do not come to be in him de novo, because they have remained in the sinner, - therefore charity does.
119. One might also argue, according to his first way, that God, who was offended by the sinner before, remits the offence when the sinner later repents; this is not because of any change in the divine will (as there can be in me when I remit an offense); therefore it is because of the fact that he to whom the offense is remitted is differently disposed in himself.
120. But this argument is not conclusive, as will be plain in IV d.16 q.2 n.19, where it will be said that God remits the offense to the sinner first in nature before he gives the sinner grace. Hence the arguments - if any according to this first way are valid - must be taken from passive acceptance and from order or dignity for eternal life, which accord with a justified person and not with a sinner, as has just been argued [n.119]; but they must not be taken from mere remission of the offense [n.113], which is in itself a lesser thing than to be just.
121. [Second way] - From the second way, namely from the idea of a meritorious act [n.113], the argument goes as follows:
Nothing is said to act formally in any action unless the principle of the action is the form of the agent; this is taken from On the Soul 2.2.414a12-14 where, from the fact that the soul is ‘that whereby we live and sense’ etc. [n.13], the conclusion is drawn that the soul is the act and form of what performs those acts; therefore, since meritorious action belongs to the will, or to the man working through his will, the result is that that by which he meritoriously acts is his form. But that by which he meritoriously acts cannot be pure nature, because then he could meritoriously act from his natural powers alone, which seems to be the error of Pelagius; therefore something supernatural is required; clearly not faith or hope, because these remain in a sinner, - therefore charity.
122. Further, no action is in the power of an agent unless that agent has a form by which it can act; for if it could act through something assisting it - something merely extrinsic - which is not in its power, such an action is not in its power, just as neither is the assistance of the extrinsic thing in its power. But the Holy Spirit assisting the will is not in the power of the will, just as neither is universally the action of a superior cause in the power of an inferior cause. Therefore if the will could act from the assistance alone and did not have a form in itself by which it was sufficiently able to proceed to a meritorious act, the result follows that the meritorious act would not be in its power, -which seems discordant.
123. Further, if the Holy Spirit is moving the will in a special way in the case of a meritorious action, the consequence is that the motion is cause of something in the will itself and that, with respect to it, the will does not have any causality but only a passive receptivity; either then that something is an act of loving, and then the result is that the act of loving is in no way from the will; or it is some other thing which naturally precedes the act of loving, - and this other thing I call ‘a habit’, because a perfection prior to act in a power (a perfection that is habitual or can be habitual) seems to be a habit.
124. Further, fourth, the identity of the Father with the Son is greater than any union of the Holy Spirit with the will can be; but the Father is not said, because of this identity, to do anything by the Son, as is plain from Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.1 n.2, because ‘the Father is not wise by generated wisdom’; therefore much less will the will be said to do anything because of the union with it of ‘the Holy Spirit at work’.
B. Scotus’ own Response
125. For the solution of this question three things need to be looked at: first, whether some supernatural habit needs to be posited that gives grace to a nature capable of being beatified; second, whether it is simply necessary to posit such a habit so that such a nature may be beatified; and third, what the Master thought on this question, on account of the many things imputed to him.
1. Whether some Supernatural Habit needs to be Posited that gives Grace to a Nature Capable of being Beatified
126. [A supernatural habit bestowing grace is present within] - As to the first article [n.125] one can say that from no act which we experience, whether from the substance of the act, or from the intensity of the act, or from the pleasure or ease in doing it, or from the goodness or the moral rectitude of the act, can we conclude that some such supernatural habit is present; because from none of them can anyone possessed of charity know with certitude that he exists in charity, namely from the fact that an act with such and such intensity is experienced to exist within him, or to be in him with pleasure and ease, or to be consonant with right reason.
127. Now the reason that one cannot conclude from the act or from any condition of the act that such a habit exists within is that either the act is able of its own power alone to have all the aforesaid features, when there is concurrence of right reason (as is the case when one holds the fourth way set down in the preceding solution [n.46]), or, if some habit would, because of any of the aforesaid conditions [n.126], be concurrent with the act, it could be some acquired habit; for acquired friendship could give just as much intensity to the act (as second cause, along with the power as first cause [n.40]), could also bestow just as much pleasure and ease, could even be a habit just as consonant with right reason, because an elicited act would have no clearly apparent condition from which the conclusion would necessarily follow that it was elicited according to a supernatural habit.
128. But if you say ‘the will is moved suddenly to acting intensely, easily, pleasurably, and this in a way consonant with supernatural reason (that is, consonant with the dictate of faith), but the will cannot suddenly acquire a habit of ordered friendship consonant with the faith, therefore it has some non-acquired habit whereby it is inclined suddenly to act’, - I reply: the will can be moved to natural acts with suddenness enough, and these natural acts are totally subject to its power, because - as Augustine says Retractions I ch.22 n.4 - “nothing is as much in the power of the will as the will itself”; therefore the proposed conclusion cannot be drawn from this suddenness.
129. I say, therefore, that over and above all the aforesaid conditions, namely the intensity of the act, pleasure and ease in acting, rectitude or goodness and conformity with right reason (right either according to the dictate of prudence or according to the dictate of faith), over and above - I say - all these, there is one condition in the act that is a matter of belief, namely that the act is acceptable to God; not indeed merely with the common acceptance by which God accepts every creature (which is even the way he wills the act that is substrate to a sin, otherwise the act would not have its existence from him), but with a special acceptance, which is in the divine will an ordering toward eternal life of this sort of act as of something condignly deserving of the reward. And in this way we have belief that our nature is capable of beatification, is just, is habitually accepted, -that is, that when it is not actually operating, yet still the divine will is ordering it to eternal life as being worthy of so great a good, in accord with the disposition that it possesses habitually in itself. And it is because of this habitual acceptance of a nature capable of beatification even when it is not operating, and because of the actual acceptance of an act elicited by such a nature, that one must posit a single supernatural habit whereby he who formally possesses it is accepted by God and whereby his elicited act is accepted as meritorious. So the nature or the act does not seem to be accepted without some habit informing them, because - in accordance with what has been argued [nn.116-117, 122] - God does not seem to have a will different in nature about an object that has in no way been made different [nn.116-117]; nor would even an act ‘as it is acceptable to God’ seem to be in the power of an agent unless that by which he formally acted were his form [n.122].
130. [Doubt 1] - But there is a doubt about how this habit may be the reason for accepting the nature and the act.
131. The reason indeed for accepting the nature seems to be just a sort of comeliness of nature, pleasing to the divine will, such that, whether the habit is posited as active or non-active, from the mere fact that it is such a form, beautifying and adorning the soul, it can be a reason of acceptance and a reason for accepting the nature.
132. But for the acceptance of an act more is required than that the agent have this spiritual comeliness, otherwise he who has such a habit could not have any act that was indifferent, nor could commit venial sin, which is discordant [II d.41 q. un nn.3-4]. - The proof of the consequence is that neither of these things [indifferent acts and venial sin] takes away the comeliness from the actor, and so each of them would be accepted, if an act were to be accepted merely from the comeliness of the actor.
133. One must therefore say that the habit, besides the fact that it is a spiritual comeliness, also inclines toward definite acts, and this either non-actively, according to the fourth way posited in the preceding solution [n.46], or (which seems more to be the case) actively, according to the third way [n.32].
134. The proof is as follows:
First, because otherwise it would seem that, without the habit, one could have a very intense act of loving God, and this both as a wayfarer and in the fatherland, and thus also have beatitude; for in the instant of nature in which an act is elicited by an active principle, if the will alone were the active principle, it would ‘insofar as active’ be a principle that was just as perfect without the habit as with it, and the power alone could, with equal effort, perform the act (as is plain [n.70]); therefore a most perfect act of loving God could be had without such a habit.
135. A second proof to the same effect is that otherwise what Augustine says [Pseudo-Augustine Hypognosticon III ch.1 n.20] about free choice would not seem to be true, namely that ‘grace is related to free choice as a rider to a horse’, because the rider actively directs and moves the horse, in some way or other. - Nor even would that remark seem to be true which he is says in a letter to Boniface [Augustine, Epist. 186 ad Paulinum ch.3 n.10]: ‘With the will accompanying,’ he says, ‘not going ahead; a foot follower, not a lord’. Now the will would not be a foot follower to grace if grace itself had no causality.24
136. [Doubt 2] - But then there is a further doubt about this habit when compared with the operating power - namely which of them should be called the first cause and which the second.
137. For it seems from what has been said [n.135] that grace is the first cause.
138. But it seems the opposite is the case:
First, because the power uses the habit and not conversely.
139. Second, because the action would not be free if grace were the first cause; for the will would be moved naturally, because grace would move it naturally, - and just as the will would not be moved freely, so neither would it act freely, since it would not act save because it was moved.
140. Third, because the will - once it has grace - would not seem able ever to sin, because the second cause always follows the inclination of the first cause, nor seem able to be moved to the opposite of that to which the first cause inclines it.
141. Similarly, fourth, the will is more without limit as to acts than the habit is; being without limit as to several effects seems to belong to the superior cause [cf. nn.33-39].
142. Here it can be said that in a meritorious act (about which the discussion now is [nn.129-135]) I am considering two things, namely: that which precedes the idea of its being meritorious, and in this rank are included the substance of the act and its intensity and its moral rectitude; over and above this I consider also the very idea of its being meritorious, which is that it is accepted by the divine will in order to a reward, or that it is acceptable or worthy of being accepted.
143. This second thing would be truer if the act had complete merit through something that is in him who merits; to accept is not in him but is a divine action; but divine action does not seem to be per se required for merit. - There is also proof for this in that there seems to be a merit [sc. in him who merits] with respect to this sort of ‘being accepted’, for some act is worthy to be accepted and another not; therefore before it is understood to have been accepted, there is something in the act whereby it is worthy to be accepted; therefore there is then in it the idea of merit, at least with respect to acceptance.
144. On the contrary: the idea of merit is not completely had unless the idea of being worthy or worthily ordainable to a reward is had (which reward is beatitude), and this ‘worthily’ accords with commutative or retributive justice; but no act has this order merely from what acts from within (for then God could not fail to reward beatitude to him who has so acted without unjustly depriving him of it, - this is false); therefore such order according to justice is from the divine will alone gratuitously ordering it, and thus the idea of merit will be complete from the divine will ordering this act to a reward.
145. And as to what is said about the second thing that ‘divine action is not of the idea of merit’ [n.143], - I reply: the relation to divine action in the action of him who merits belongs to the idea of merit, because there is no relation of the one who merits without divine action.
146. If you say that ‘then it is not in the power of the one who merits to merit, just as neither is the divine action in his power’, and similarly ‘the meriting would belong more principally to God than to me, because what is more principal in the merit comes from divine action’, - to the first point: the act which is merit is in my power, on the supposition of the general influence, if I have grace and the use of free choice; but the completion of the idea of merit is not in my power save dispositively, although disposivitely in such a way that the completion for my acting always follows from the divine disposition, just as animation always follows on the organizing done by the natural cause. The same thing makes clear the response to the second point, because although what is more principal in merit - that is, what is last and completive - is from God, yet it does not follow that ‘therefore God merits’, because merit is an act of a free power, and an act elicited according to the gift of grace, accepted by God as being rewardable with beatitude - and therefore to merit is to act thus; God does not act thus.
147. On the contrary: at least what is more principal in merit is from God. - I reply that if by ‘more principal’ is meant what does the ultimate completing, let it be conceded; if is meant the first reality or the more perfect reality, let it be denied, because an act is something absolute and prior in nature to ‘the passive acceptance’, and is more a being than it is.
148. To that which was adduced second for the second thing, which was ‘the act merits to be accepted’ [n.143] - I reply: there is in it the idea of merit ‘in a certain respect’, because the ordaining of the act to beatitude is not to it as to a reward that has to be justly rendered for such an act, - and let it be conceded that the passive divine acceptance is not included in the idea of merit ‘in a certain respect’, just as it is not required in the idea of merit by congruity, in the way that someone contrite merits to be justified.
149. And what has just been said [nn.144-148] must be understood of the divine eternal acceptance by which God, foreseeing from eternity this act being elicited from such principles, willed it to be ordered to a reward, and by the act of his will ordering it to a reward, willed it to be a merit; which act, considered in itself without such divine acceptance, would not, in strict justice, have been worthy of such a reward from the intrinsic goodness that it would have from its own principles; the fact is plain because a reward is always a greater good than the merit, and strict justice does not render a greater good for a lesser one. Therefore it is well said that God always rewards beyond condign worth, indeed universally beyond the worth of the act which is the merit, - because that the merit is condign merit is something beyond its nature and its intrinsic goodness, and comes from gratuitous divine acceptance; and perhaps further it is beyond that other merit which an act needing to be accepted would have by common law, whenever God rewards it from pure generosity.
150. In addition, just as in a meritorious act there are the two aforesaid things (namely the substance of the act along with rectitude, and the idea of merit [n.142]), likewise the habit of grace is a certain quality, - and the proof is that besides the relation which it has to right reason insofar as it is a morally good habit, it has a special relation to the divine will accepting it or accepting the subject that has it.
151. This habit according to its substance actively inclines to act, and this it does actively as a partial cause (when one holds the third way in the preceding solution [n.32]), and in this causality the habit is second cause and the power first cause, as was said in the preceding solution about the habit in general and about the power, when positing the habit as ‘active’ [n.40]; and this is proved by the reasons already adduced [nn.138-141].
152. But when one takes the act according to its idea of being meritorious, one can say that this condition belongs principally to the act from the habit and less principally from the will; for the act is more accepted as worthy of reward because it is elicited by charity than because it is freely elicited by the will, although both are necessarily required. An example of this can be posited about the cutting up of a body by means of a knife; the cutting, to be sure, is itself absolutely more from the moving power of the cutter than from the knife, and therefore a stronger moving power cuts more quickly; but yet insofar as this cutting is compared to sight under the idea of being acceptable - as pleasing to someone - it is attributed more to the knife, because the smoothness of the cut parts, which pleases sight, comes more from the sharpness of the instrument than from the efficacy of the virtue that principally does the cutting. Likewise, a sound is more from the percussion of the sounding body than from the orderedness of the percussion, and yet, as acceptable to hearing, it is more from the orderedness of the percussion than from the efficacy of the percussive power; nay the percussive virtue could be more efficacious and less acceptable, - nay altogether not acceptable to hearing, because the sound is not harmonious. Another example: if the father is the principal cause with respect to the son and the mother is less principal, yet she can be a more principal cause of the son insofar as he is loved or lovable by someone, such that the son is more loved because he is the mother’s as his bearer than because he is the father’s as his begetter.
153. So it is possible for God to have ordained to accept some act as worthy of reward - or as acceptable or to be accepted - because some habit inclines to that act as the partial active principal of it, and which because of this is more principally accepted or more principally acceptable than because it is from the remaining partial cause.
154. In this way [nn.152-153], then, can the remark of Augustine be expounded that ‘charity is like a rider to a horse’ [n.135], and also the remark that ‘the will in respect of grace follows on foot behind and does not go ahead’; this is indeed true with respect to the act insofar as it is meritorious, but not insofar as it is the act ‘in its substance’.
155. And the first example [about rider and horse] would be altogether similar if the horse were free and the rider were directing the horse by way of nature to a definite end. The horse’s course would be more pleasing, and that to some ordained will, from the fact that it was according to the natural inclination of the rider himself to a definite end than from the fact that the horse was by its own motive force running quickly. Then too the horse could of its own liberty throw off the rider, or move itself to something else at a tangent to the rider’s direction to the end; and in the first case indeed the horse would become altogether non-acceptable, because it would not have the rider on account of which it would be accepted by such a will, - in the second case, although such a horse would be acceptable, yet its course would not be accepted, because it would not be according to the direction of the rider. - This is how it is in the proposed case. The will is as it were a free horse, and grace as it were the rider by way of nature, inclining it to an object in a determinate way; a course of the will in accordance with this sort of inclination would be pleasing, - a different course would not be pleasing, as when there is venial sin or an indifferent act; but when the rider is thrown off, which is done by mortal sin, the will itself becomes altogether displeasing.
156. In this way too the will is a foot follower, because it does not of itself as determinately incline to the term (on account of which inclination the act is accepted) as grace inclines, and the will participates that inclination from grace, because the inclination belongs more to grace by its essence than to the will; and in this respect is the will itself a second cause, not because in causing ‘something intrinsic to the act’ it is second cause, but it is so in being that because of which the act is accepted, because it states a respect of the act to what is extrinsic; certainly it is possible enough for some relation to what is external to belong less principally to an effect because of a more principal cause of the effect than because of a less principal cause of it, as is plain in the examples set down above [n.152].25
157. But this habit, just like any other moral habit also, has to incline itself determinately to the object - or to the end - by virtue of the object which in some way it participates; for just as an intellectual habit has the object in some way in itself as present to it under the idea of intelligible object, so a moral habit has the object in some way in itself under the idea of lovable good, - and thus, just as the former by virtue of the object has in some way to act in the presence of the object, so the latter by virtue of the object it in some way contains has to incline toward the object; from this it is clear how the habit inclines more determinately to the object than the power does, because it more determinately includes the object.
158. And in accord with this [n.157] one could also say that the partial causality which is attributed to the habit [nn151, 40, 32] comes to it from the part of the cause by which the object is said to be active with respect to the action and not from the part of the cause by which the power is said to be active, because a habit has its force more from the object which it determinately includes than from the power itself.
159. And if it is then argued, as was argued in the aforesaid solution, that ‘the habit determines and inclines the power, therefore it is a prior cause’ [n.34], - look for the response there [n.85].
2. Whether a Supernatural Habit giving it Grace has to be posited so that a Nature Capable of Beatification may be Beatified
160. About the second article [n.125] I say that God could of his absolute power have very well accepted - with the special acceptance stated before [n.129] - a nature capable of beatification that was existing in its pure natural state; and likewise, the act of it, for which it had a purely natural inclination, he could have accepted as meritorious. But he is not believed to have so disposed things that he should thus accept its pure nature or act, because to say that ‘an act from purely natural powers is meritorious’ comes close to the error of Pelagius [n.121]. Therefore the more likely belief is that he accepts nature and its act as meritorious on the basis of a supernatural habit.
161. But there is a double doubt here.
One as to how something in created nature could be a reason for acceptance by the divine will (whether absolutely or in such a way [sc. of special acceptance]), since nothing in nature is a reason for divine action, whether in itself or as it tends about such an object.
162. The other doubt is because, when every supernatural gift of God is excluded, there is a distinguishing between friend and enemy, - so that an enemy is said to be he in whom sin has not been destroyed (and so the offense remains), and a non-enemy is said to be he in whom it is not an offense; but in advance of the conferring of any spiritual gift an offense could be removed from someone who was ‘an enemy before’, as will be said in IV d.16 [n.120].
163. I reply. A non-enemy is not a ‘friend’; because someone who forgives an offense in another - for the reason that he no longer seeks punishment for the offense -does not become that other’s enemy more; but it does not follow because of this that he at once recover him as a friend, nor that he repel him as an enemy in some contrary way, but in a negative one - that he neither will him evil as an enemy nor good as a friend.
164. As far as this article [n.162] is concerned, then, there is no necessity to posit a supernatural habit conferring grace when speaking of the necessity that regards God’s absolute power (especially since he could give beatitude without any preceding merit), although however this may be necessary when speaking of the necessity that regards God’s ordained power, which ordaining we pick up in Scripture and from the sayings of the saints, where we have it that a sinner is not worthy of eternal life and that a just man is worthy.
3. About the Opinion of Peter Lombard
165. As to the third article [n.125], one could say that the Master does not deny every supernatural habit. He himself indeed, in d.37 of the first book, in the chapter ‘That also is marvelous’, ch.2 n.338, adduces Augustine to Dardanus [On the Foreknowledge of God ch.6 n.21] saying that “to the temple of God belong sanctified children, who are not able to know God”; therefore God dwells in a child who, however, cannot have an elicited act about God. This indwelling, which belongs to a regenerated child and not to some other, cannot exist in the child without a supernatural habit; for it cannot be posited there either because of an act, because a child has (and can have) no such act, or because of nature alone, because God does not indwell some other non-regenerated child, although the same nature nevertheless exists in him.
166. Likewise, in d.26 of book II, ch.1 nn.228-229, he seems to posit created grace in the soul.
167. Therefore it can be said that the Master posited one habit whereby, when it informs the soul, the Holy Spirit indwells and, as indwelling, perfects the soul’s powers as it were with supernatural habits: perfects two powers indeed - namely intellect and will - with faith and hope, for act of believing and hoping; but he perfects the will - for act of loving - with no habit other than that by which he is said to indwell, because the act of loving is so perfect that it can be attributed immediately to the habit by which, when it formally inheres, the Holy Spirit indwells, as by a most perfect habit. Acts of believing and hoping cannot thus be immediately attributed to the habit by which the Holy Spirit indwells, on account of the imperfection of those acts and the perfection of the habit whereby the Holy Spirit indwells the mind; for that habit should be thus perfect, because it will not be removed even in the fatherland, when the soul will be the temple of the Lord; for believing and hoping will not remain there [n.101].
168. And in this way the authorities from Augustine [nn.1-3] make for the Master, not because there is no supernatural habit formally giving the soul grace, but because it is not a different habit from that by which the Holy Spirit indwells the soul in the way that the habit of believing and hoping is other than the habit by which he indwells; and this will be plain from solving the reasons that are adduced for the first part of the question [nn.171-177].
169. In this regard, then, the Master does not seem to disagree with others save because they either posit grace to be a habit other than charity, or at least say that this habit - which in reality is grace - is formally in the will and not in the essence of the soul, for then the Holy Spirit would not indwell by a single as it were radical habit with respect to faith and hope as these first come to be, but he would indwell by a habit formally inherent, informing the will, which habit would be posterior, in some order of nature, to faith and hope.
170. But when one holds that the same habit is in reality charity and grace [II d.27 q. un nn.3-4], it seems that this habit would inform the essence of the soul first, and thus the virtues that inform the powers would flow first from the Holy Spirit indwelling the essence of the soul, - or that this habit is in the will formally, on the presupposition already of faith and hope in the powers (on which point see II Suppl. d.26 q. un); at any rate charity does not seem to be a different habit in reality from that by which the Holy Spirit indwells the soul, and thus the Holy Spirit does not move to act of love through a ‘mediating’ habit [n.101] - supply ‘habit other than that by which he indwells’ - as he does so move to act of belief and hope.
C. To the Principal Arguments
171. To the principal arguments [nn.1-6].
To the first [n.1] I say that the argument of Augustine holds as follows: ‘everyone who loves his neighbor loves his own love formally, if he turns himself toward it; but everyone who loves his own love formally loves the Holy Spirit who is by essence love; therefore everyone who loves his brother loves the Holy Spirit who is by essence love’. -The second proposition in order here (which however would be the major if one arranges it in a syllogism) is proved as follows, that everyone who loves a lesser good in an ordered way ought to love more some greater good, especially when the reason for lovability in the lesser good is only from the greater good; but my love is formally a lesser good than the love by essence that is the Holy Spirit, and in particular it gets from that love its own reason of lovability. The reasoning of Augustine, therefore, has to be reduced to two syllogisms as follows: ‘he who loves his love-act loves love by essence; but he who loves his neighbor loves his love-act; therefore he who loves his neighbor loves love by essence. But God is this sort of love; therefore etc.’26
172. About his second argument, namely about the most excellent gift [n.2], one could say that the argument holds as follows: ‘no created gift is more excellent than created charity, therefore charity is perfection simply, and includes of its nature no imperfection or limitation’. - The proof of this consequence is that more eminent than any gift which is not perfection simply is some other gift in creatures that is perfection simply. Further: every perfection simply belongs more formally to the Holy Spirit from his being himself the simply most excellent gift, and thereby from God being so (because God can give himself), and so the most excellent gift is God; therefore the Holy Spirit, from his being the simply most excellent gift, is every perfection simply. But there stands along with this the fact that this ‘perfection simply’ is participated in by us and is essentially other than the divine person who is perfect by this perfection simply.
173. Absolutely, then, the arguments of Augustine [nn.1-2] presuppose [nn.171-172] that God is formally charity and love, - not only effectively, as ‘hope’ or ‘my patience’ is so effectively, because it effects patience as a non-perfection simply, and so as not agreeing with itself formally; but he effects in the soul charity - and love - as a perfection simply, and therefore as agreeing with himself formally. In this way he in one way makes humanity in a man and in another way goodness; from the fact, to be sure, that he makes humanity it does not follow that he is formally man, but only that he is effective cause of man; but from the fact that he causes goodness it does follow that he is formally goodness, - and the reason is that every perfection simply that exists in the caused thing is reduced to a cause that formally possesses that perfection. It is not so with a limited perfection.27
174. But what do these authorities [nn.1-3], so understood [n.173], do for the proposal of the Master [nn.165-170]?
I reply that the habit by which the soul is inclined toward meritoriously loving is a perfection simply, insofar as the ‘perfection simply’ belongs to the Holy Spirit; it follows therefore that this habit could be an immediate habit with respect to the love that is perfection simply, and hereby the Holy Spirit - as indwelling through this habit - more immediately causes that act of love than do acts of believing and hoping, with respect to which acts there cannot be any proximate cause that is perfection simply.
175. But against this response there is the following argument:
First, that the proposition on which it relies is false, namely that ‘more eminent or more perfect than any perfection non-simply in creatures is some perfection simply’ [n.172]; for it seems to have an instance against it in the case of the essence of the supreme angel, which is not a perfection simply and yet nothing more noble than it seems to exist in the whole of creation.
176. Besides, the intention and reason of Augustine seem badly adduced for the intention of the Master [n.174], because from the first reason [n.1] is had that the Holy Spirit is formally love by essence [n.171], and from the second [n.2] - if it is valid - is had that the Holy Spirit is formally charity by essence [n.172]. How then from this is it inferred that there is not in us some habitual love, or charity, different from the habit by which the Holy Spirit is said to indwell? The habit indeed by which the Holy Spirit indwells is either not a perfection simply but some limited perfection, - or, if it is, there does not fail to follow that a habit other than it could be posited as the proximate principle for eliciting my act of meritoriously loving, for that act is limited and a limited ‘perfection’; one cannot speak about the reason of Augustine otherwise for the proposal of the Master.28
177. To the other argument [n.9] it is plain how charity is a good by participation from I d.8 n.213, where it was expounded how a simple form participates its own cause.
D. To the Arguments for the Opinion attributed to Peter Lombard.
178. To the arguments for the opinion imposed on the Master, namely the opinion that denies a supernatural habit bestowing grace [nn.101-112].
179. [To the arguments for the first way] - To the first [n.104] I say that the habit in question gives acceptable acting [nn.150, 129], and that it gives some activity with respect to act, as some second cause with respect to it [n.151]; but it does not give pleasurable or easy acting, which belong to an acquired habit insofar as it is distinguished from an infused habit, on account of its being acquired from repeated acting.
180. To the second [n.105] I say that although some say the will in its purely natural state cannot have any act about a supernatural object seen bare, yet this was rejected in I d.1 nn.88-89, 141-142. I concede, then, that the will could have an act about such an object whether shown bare or by an act of faith, - but the act about an object shown by faith would not be meritorious, because it would not be according to the inclination of the habit by which alone God makes disposition to accept the act; nor even in the fatherland would it be beatitude, because it would not be as perfect as it could be possessed by such a power if the power were perfect in a way proportionate to the supernatural habit.
181. And if you object that the act about the divine essence as seen could be so perfect that it would give rest to the will, because the act would be elicited in accord with its total effort and would consequently be beatific, - which seems to be the case also because such a will would have ‘whatever it wanted and would want nothing badly’ (but this is ‘to be blessed’ according to Augustine On the Trinity XIII ch.5 n.8), - I reply that it would not be blessed, not only because it would not have whatever it wanted in the way it should want it (for it should want ‘to love acceptably’ and this it would not have), but also because it would not have an act as perfect as to agree with it in the grade of its nature. For no power capable of being habituated can have, without that habit, an act as perfect as it can with it [nn.40, 70, following the third way, n.32]; nay, the more perfect the power the less can it, if it lacks all habit, have an act proportional to its perfection, because, from the fact that the geometrical proportion between two unequal powers is like proportionally perfective habits, there will be therefore another proportion, arithmetical proportion - and thus a more perfect power, if it has not been habituated, will be simply more deficient than a lower and more imperfect power [III Suppl. d.27 q. un. n.19]
182. As to the remark added that ‘it has whatever it wants’, - I reply: not with as much volition as it can in an ordered way desire the object with. For it can in an ordered way desire to have it with an act as great as would agree with it from the nature of the power and the habit proportional to it, and not merely with an act as perfect as agrees with it from its purely natural resources; now it would not have [sc. whatever it wants] in the first way but only in the second.
183. Against this [nn.181-182]:
It seems then that no will would be blessed that did not have the greatest charity it was capable of.
184. Further, as was argued in the preceding solution [n.30], by that reason by which a power in the supreme grade of the power is perfect, it is capable of the supreme act such that nothing is lacking to it from lack of the habit; therefore to a will in any grade nothing in that grade is lacking to it because of lack of the habit.
185. To the first [183] I say that it cannot in an ordered way will to have the beatific object with a greater act than corresponds with its merits; such an act is not the greatest ‘it is capable of’, although always greater than the one it could have existing in its purely natural state.
186. To the second [184] I say that an infinite will contains eminently in itself by identity every perfection or the whole perfection of the habit, and so it does not give any lesser perfection to its act on account of not being understood to be informed with the habit; but a finite power does not include by identity the habit proportional to it, and so it can in its acting fail of the proportion that agrees with it, if be not perfected with the habit.
187. To the third [n.106] I say that this act is not created, speaking of creation properly; both because there is, with respect to it, the concurrence of some active second cause, while creation belongs to the first agent alone without a second cause, - and because there is presupposed here something that is receptive of the act (namely the will), while in creation nothing is presupposed that is susceptive of creation. When therefore it is said that ‘everything supernatural is created’ [n.106], if it be conceded of every supernatural first act, yet it should not be conceded of something supernatural that is a second act, because there is for this latter the concurrence of created power, both in idea of what is active in some way [nn.152-153] and in idea of what is receptive; and yet it can be called supernatural by reason of the form or the habit that concurs in its production, even though it be not immediately created.
188. One can in another way say [to the third, n.106] that the act is not properly supernatural the way the habit is, because although ‘the presupposed habit’ is immediately from a supernatural cause, yet it is, when posited in existence, a natural cause with respect to its act; and so the act that is produced by such a habit is not supernatural; for the form that is supernaturally produced can be as naturally related to its act as a form that is merely natural is related to its act, so that the difference in the production of the forms does not cause nor entail a distinction between them in comparison to their acts.
189. To the fourth [n.107] one can say that a will thus habituated has in its power the use of a habit of this sort; and when the will operates with equal effort, the habit cooperates equally along with it, because a habit acts, on its own part, by way of nature. However, there will not always be an equal pleasure following on the elicited act; the pleasure is, to be sure, from the object that is attained by the act and not only from the power acting about the object; but now [sc. in this present life], when the object is not present in itself but in figure, the pleasure can be caused by a limited object in diverse ways, now more now less, although an equally intense act with equal effort be elicited about it. - As for what is said of contemplatives [n.107], it is true about the devotion, that is, about the pleasure consequent to the act; but it is not true about the elicited act of loving itself, which is sometimes more intense and sometimes more meritorious, although a lesser pleasure or almost none follow upon it, - and sometimes a lesser act, lesser both in itself and in divine acceptance, is accompanied by a greater pleasure, for attracting little ones so that they might more eagerly pursue that whose sweetness they have had advance taste of.
190. [To the arguments for the second way] - To the first argument about the second way [nn.108-109], I concede that the Holy Spirit could cause an act immediately in the will, and could accept that act - as caused by himself - as worthy of eternal life; but then that act would neither be of the will nor in its power; nor do we believe that he accepts such an act, but he makes disposition to accept an act of free choice - which act is in the will’s power.
191. To the second [n.110] I say that the Holy Spirit’s cooperating with fire for it to heat is not a miracle; but his cooperating with water for it to heat (provided however some causality with respect to heating could, without contradiction, be said to belong to water), this would be miraculous. Thus I say in the proposed case that the Holy Spirit’s cooperating with an habituated human will for it to elicit an act in accord with the habit, that this is part of the common law by which God assists a second cause in doing its act; but his cooperating with a non-habituated will would be miraculous, provided however the will itself could operate. I say, therefore, that the Holy Spirit cooperates with a will possessed of charity; not indeed because the will possesses it such that its charity is the prior cause, namely moving the Holy Spirit to cooperate, - but because the Holy Spirit cooperates generally with a second cause in the act to which the second cause, according to its form, is ordered, the way it is with act of love in an habituated will. - When you say, therefore, that ‘the Holy Spirit cooperates before the will has charity’ [n.110], this is false unless it be understood of priority of nature, as a superior cause is prior. The Holy Spirit, to be sure, cooperates with a will possessed of charity at the same time as the will operates, - or if it be conceded that the Holy Spirit cooperates with the will before the will have charity, it does not therefore follow that ‘he could be cooperating equally with a will not possessed of charity’ [n.110], because he does not cooperate with a will not possessed of a form for acting as he does with a will that is.
192. To the third [n.111] I say that although by the communication of properties [sc. between the two natures in the incarnate Christ] human operations are truly asserted of the Word, yet the proper acts of the Word in his divine nature were not in the power of ‘this man’ [sc. Christ] so that he could, insofar as man, merit by those acts; for Christ did not merit for us in this act, namely if the Son of God - who was in the flesh - created souls along with the Father and the Holy Spirit; and so as to the proposed case, the will will not merit if the Holy Spirit, in whatever way he is joined to it, were to cause in it an act of loving.
193. To the final argument [n.112] I say that although it cause difficulty for those who hold that the species is first act with respect to the intellect whereby the intellect is capable of second act (as hot wood heats by heat), because if this were true it would be difficult to save the proposition that the intellect ‘when not informed by any form’ would be capable of operation [I d.3 nn.456-459]; yet according to the way that I stated in distinction 3 of this first book [d.3 nn.494-498], that ‘the object - whether in itself or in the species - is a sort of partial cause, concurring with the intellect in causing intellection’, this argument does not cause any difficulty, because the object when present in itself (the way it will be in the fatherland) suffices without any informing for causing vision, or suffices of itself alone along with the intellect.
194. And if it be argued ‘if vision can be perfect without an informing habit, then the enjoyment can be most perfect too [sc. without a habit]’, - I reply: no one commonly denies that in glory there is ‘a habit of the light of glory in the intellect’ [I d.3 n.114; III d.14 qq.102 nn.2-4, 8; IV Suppl. d.49 p.2 q.3 nn.9-10], - and this habit on the part of the intellect can be set down as corresponding to charity on the part of the will.29