I. To the Question

8. It seems to be the opinion of the masters here that those damned for original sin alone will have no punishment of exterior sense, to wit fire, because they had no disordered delights, and the harshness of the afflicting fire corresponds, as proper punishment, to that delight.

9. They will also not have interior punishment, as sadness, because they would not be saddened about their state, since sadness (according to Augustine City of God 14.15) is about things that happen to us against our will, and so they would be in that state against their will and would want the opposite; and thus they would murmur against the divine disposition and have as a result a disordered disposition of will [sc. actual sin], which seems absurd, for by the divine sentence things are so disposed that “wherever the wood falls, there it will lie” (Ecclesiastes, above d.7 n.53). Therefore since they had no disordered volition in this present life, they will consequently have no interior sadness. If, further, they were saddened by the lack of blessedness and of the divine vision, they would despair of it (for they have no hope), and so would have the gravest of the sins of all the damned, namely sadness from despair.

10. It seems too that sadness, as it is distinguished from pain, is simply a greater punishment (for man) than any other pain of sense, because as the will is more man’s appetite than is the sensitive appetite, so whatever a man does or suffers as to his will he does or suffers more as he is a man than what he does or suffers simply as to any other appetite; and so a man suffers simply more if he is sad than if he is in pain. So it does not seem that any sadness should be posited for them [sc. those damned for original sin alone].

11. And if a question be asked about their knowledge, one can concede, without asserting, that since they will have an intellect impeded by a corruptible body (to the extent that our intellect too is impeded in this present body) and yet it will not be impeded by torments (of the sort the other damned will have), they will be able to have a natural knowledge of things, and a knowledge newly acquired, because new acquisition is not repugnant to the unchangeableness of their state, since having new understanding of some contingent facts is not repugnant to the unchangeableness of the state of the blessed; so likewise there is no repugnance to the stability of the state of the blessed (which consists in seeing God or the Word) that they should newly understand some necessary truth that they did not understand before, and understand from one necessary truth another necessary truth, and so be able to learn some truths about necessary things within their proper kind. So as to the others too [sc. those damned for original sin alone], since they do not have a knowledge so perfect that they cannot receive more, and since it is not reasonable to posit in them an impediment because of which they cannot acquire more, it seems probable to concede that they can naturally have knowledge of all naturally knowable things (and have it more excellently than other philosophers had it in this present state), and so they can attain to some natural blessedness about God as known in general.

12. But if an objection is raised whether they will have knowledge of blessedness in particular or be saddened about it, I reply:

Just as was said, in Prologue nn.13-18, that particular knowledge is not possible for man unless he is raised supernaturally, so either the supernatural knowledge in particular will not be given to them, because it would be a sadness for them, for they did not fail to merit it as a pagan has (for which reason knowledge of blessedness in particular is allowed to a pagan by way of very grave punishment, namely so that he may be saddened by despairing of being able to reach it); or if they will have knowledge of blessedness in particular, they will not be saddened, because they will be content with their state knowing that God has disposed thus in their regard, and that they did not at any time fail by their own act to merit it.