B. Rejection of the Opinion

1. Against the Conclusion in Itself

11. There is argument against this, and first against the conclusion [n.8], because mortal sin consists only in transgressing God’s precept, according to Augustine Against Faustus 22.27, and it is contained in Sentences d.35; according to Jerome [actually Pelagius himself, in a book once attributed to Jerome, On the Faith to Pope Innocent n.10, “We execrate too the blasphemy of those who say that something impossible for man has been commanded by God”] - ‘let him be anathema who says that God has commanded impossibilities’; therefore, just as it is possible to avoid one sin and transgression against one precept, so it is also possible to avoid any of them.

12. Response is made [Aquinas, Alexander of Hales] that when someone is in mortal sin it is not possible for him, while he remains in sin, to keep the precept, but it is possible for him to prepare and dispose himself for grace, by which, once given, he can keep the precept; and thus, if he did not prepare himself, the lack of preparation is imputed to him as sin, as Anselm illustrates [Why God became Man 1.24] with his example of a servant throwing himself into a well [sc. so as not to go to the market as he was bidden].

13. Another response [Bonaventure] is that although one could, while remaining in mortal sin, keep the precept as regard fulfilling it, yet not as regard the intention of the command giver, because the intention of the command giver was that by fulfilling the precept one attain the end, but one does not attain the end by observance of the precepts unless one is observing them through charity.

14. Against this [n.13]:

If God by his precept intended to oblige everyone to observe the precept through charity, then whoever does the work of the precept but not through charity sins mortally -and this both when what is in question is a negative precept, to which one is bound always and at all times (and if one is bound to do it through charity, then, by not doing it through charity, one sins mortally), and when what is in question is an affirmative precept, to which one is bound at some time (if one does not at that time do it through charity one sins mortally); and thus, if anyone has committed mortal sin and afterwards avoids killing ‘because God commanded not to kill’, and afterwards avoids stealing ‘because God commanded not to steal’, he sins mortally - and if afterwards he keeps the Sabbath ‘because God commanded it’, he sins mortally. But to say this seems to be nothing other than to make perverse everyone who has once committed mortal sin, so that he does not do afterwards any work good in its kind [cf. d.7 nn.28-29] (to which, however, he is otherwise bound [nn.34-37, 47]), although he is nevertheless advised and admonished to do the opposite, namely to do works good in their kind because these works dispose him to obtaining grace more quickly and easily.

15. Likewise, someone existing in charity can do a work of a precept not moved to it then by charity but by natural piety and meekness (or by something else), not actually then carrying it out for the ultimate end, so that the fulfilling of the work of the precept would not be meritorious for him. But if he were also bound to keep the precept according to the intention of the command giver, how then could he be attaining the end?

He would be bound at that time to merit and he would be sinning mortally at that time by doing such a work (a work good in its kind and by precept), which is absurd.

16. The same argument can be made against the first response [n.12], because if we posit someone not disposing himself to grace but being still then in a state of guilt, he cannot keep himself from guilt; therefore it is impossible for him during that time to keep himself from guilt - which is false, because all guilt is voluntary. But if he can during that time keep himself from guilt (which at least seems obvious as far as the kind of work commanded by the precept is concerned), the argument before given returns [n.14], which suffices to excuse him from mortal sin.

2. Against the Two Versions of the Argument in Particular

17. I argue against these two versions in particular, and first against the first [n.9]: If one can at this particular time guard against this mortal sin and against that mortal sin and, while guarding against this one, guard against all of them (and likewise at the next following time and so on at all times), then, if one can guard against this sin and against that, one can guard against all of them at once. The assumption that one can guard against this mortal sin and against that is plain, because the will cannot simultaneously have distinct acts of consent, which are required for mortal sin; and so, while it has a distinct act of will to resist this mortal sin, it has no act of will for so willing any other mortal sin that it mortally sins by this willing. Again, by preserving oneself from one mortal sin, one becomes stronger for resisting other sins. Therefore if one can guard against this sin, which one is afraid of (or which one sins by), much more can one guard against it otherwise, and so on in other cases.

18. Against the second way [n.10] I argue as follows: at the time when one could deliberate about this sin a, then either one can deliberate about a, and the result is that, while one is deliberating, one is not sinning mortally (also when deliberation is complete, one can, according to you, guard against actual sinning with the sin a, or with any other sin at that time) - or one is unable to deliberate about a at the time of deliberation, and so one will not possess the use of reason.

19. But if you say that one cannot deliberate rightly because the intellect is blinded, this seems absurd, because a single mortal sin does not make anyone intemperate with general intemperance, for one day does not make a summer [Aristotle Ethics 1.9.1098a18-20], and one act of vice does not make a man generally vicious or blind generally as a result to all principles of doable things; therefore he can have correct deliberation about many things he is tempted by, notwithstanding the fact that he is in one mortal sin.

20. Likewise, vices are not so connected that one sin would make one blind to the principle of action for acting well, because it is also not the case that a single sin corrupts the appetite by inclining it per se to another sin; rather, along with one particular sin can stand an acquired habit contrary to another sin, because a single mortal sin does not corrupt the whole habit of virtue. Therefore by such habits acquired both about the same doable thing and about other ones, one can rightly judge and deliberate, and so at the time of deliberation one can rightly deliberate or be tempted as regard the same sin or as regard another; and if one could rightly deliberate so as not to sin by construed consent [n.10], one can, according to you, guard against every sin; therefore one can do so simply.