B. To the Fourth Question

129. But now it remains to see how a defectible will is a deficient cause with respect to sin otherwise than the divine will is, or rather that it is the cause and the divine will is not the cause - and this as to the solution of the fourth question [n.20].

1. The Opinion of Others

130. Here it is said and held [Lombard 2 d.37 ch.2 n.4, and references] that the divine will cannot be the cause of sin.

131. For which three reasons of theirs can be set down.

The first is of the following sort - Augustine 83 Questions q.3, “A man becomes worse without any wise man being responsible; for this guilt in a man is so great that in no wise man may it happen; but God is more excelling than a wise man;” therefore a man becomes worse without God being responsible, as Augustine maintains in q.4.

132. Again in the same book q.21 Augustine says, “One who is for every being the cause that it exists, is not cause of not-being for anything to make it not exist, because what comes from him is, insofar as it is, good. Now God is cause of all good; God therefore is not cause of not-being for anything; therefore neither is he cause of sin for anything, because sin is formally not-being.”

133. The third reason is from Anselm On Free Choice ch.8, “Teacher: ‘[God] can reduce to nothing all the substance he has made from nothing - but he cannot separate rightness from a will that has rightness... Now no will is just save one that wills what God wills it to will. Therefore to keep rightness of will for the sake of rightness itself is - for anyone who keeps it - to will what God wills him to will. If God separates this rightness from anyone’s will, he does it either willingly or unwillingly.’ Student: ‘He cannot do it unwillingly.’ Teacher: ‘So if he takes the aforesaid rightness away from anyone’s will, he wills what he does.’ Student: ‘Without doubt he wills.’ Teacher: ‘Certainly, then, whosever will he wills to remove the same rightness from, he does not will him to keep rightness for the sake of rightness.’ Student: ‘It so follows.’ Teacher: ‘But it was already set down that to keep rightness of will in this way is - for anyone who keeps it - to will what God wills him to will. Therefore if God takes the oft stated rightness away from anyone, he does not will him to will what he wills him to will.’

Student: ‘Nothing is more logical, and nothing is more impossible.’ Teacher: ‘Therefore nothing is more impossible than for God to take away rightness of will.’”

2. Objections to the Reasons for the Opinion of Others

134. Objections to these reasons [nn.131-33]:

First against the first [n.131], because a wise man is bound to keep the precept of God, and therefore a wise man cannot make another to be worse unless he sins and so becomes non-wise. For it is not in a wise man’s power freely to cooperate or not cooperate in another’s acting well; because if it was in his power, he would be able not to cooperate while remaining wise, and thus he could make another to be worse - that is, by his not causing goodness in the other’s act, the other would not act well. But it is in God’s power freely to cooperate or not cooperate in a created will’s acting well; therefore, with his will remaining right, God is able not to cooperate with a created will, and the created will thus will commit sin.

135. The reason is confirmed by the fact that, just as God naturally acts for the right action before the created will does (provided the action be right), so the divine will, it would seem, fails to act before the created will fails to act.

136. The argument against the second reason [n.132] is as follows, that a cause that is only necessary (or natural) with respect to some entity is not a cause of not-being, because such a cause acts according to the utmost of its power, and so it cannot not do what it is of a nature to do; but God is not this sort of cause of being for creatures as regard any being with respect to which he can be the principle of acting (where the lack of this ultimate being is evil); therefore God can, by failing to act, be the cause of evil.

137. Further, how can God be more the cause of punishment than of guilt, since punishment, just like guilt, is formally evil? For it is as simply evil not to enjoy God -both with respect to the good that it takes away and with respect to the nature that it harms - as it is not to love God, while a wayfarer, by a meritorious act; and yet this is conceded to be a punishment from God, according to Augustine Retractions 1.25.

138. Further, the privation of grace is as much an evil in itself and in the nature that is deprived as is the privation of the rightness of justice; but God can be the immediate cause of this privation; indeed he is the cause of it whenever grace is annihilated; he alone can annihilate something, and especially something that he himself immediately preserves. So, just as by refraining from action (that is by not preserving grace) he can be the cause of the non-being of grace, so he can by not acting be the cause of the lack of rightness in an elicited act.

139. Against the third reason [n.133]: it seems to have as conclusion that man cannot sin, and this result is false; therefore the reason is not conclusive.

140. Proof that the result does follow from the reason: I am able to sin at [time] a; therefore God can will me not to be right at a. For this follows in the case of non-modal propositions: ‘if I sin at a, then God does not will me to be right at a’, because from the opposite the opposite follows: ‘if he wills me to be right at a, I am right at a’ and so I do not sin; but if he does not will me to be right at a, he does not will me to will at a what he wills me to will at a (for this, according to the reason [n.133], is what it is to be right, ‘to will what God wills me to will’); therefore God is able not to will me to will at a what he wills me to will at a - which is impossible.

140. But if it be said that the reason [n.133] concludes that God, by ordained power [as opposed to absolute power], cannot take away rightness from the will without an act of the willa - on the contrary: this reason does show absolutely that the result of the reason is that my will cannot sin; in like manner, if the reason were to prove that [God can take away rightness] without an act of my will, it would prove it about God as to his absolute power. For the conclusion aims to infer a contradiction: hence is added the words ‘nothing is more impossible’ [n.133], or at any rate, if the contradiction does not follow, nothing is as equally impossible; nor is it possible for the absolute power of God either; for God contingently wills anything other than himself, and he contingently preserves it, because he is able not to preserve it.

a. a[Interpolation] Response: Thomas, Bonaventure: a better use of that which second perfection uses is a more perfect good of an angel than is first perfection.

3. Scotus’ own Opinion and Solution of the Objections

142. As to the solution of these objections [nn.134-141] and the solution of the principal question [sc. the fourth, n.20], I say that when two partial causes come together for an effect common to both of them, there can be a defect in the producing of the effect because of a defect of either concurring cause; an example: an act of willing (according to the third opinion of d.25 [not in the Ordinatio; see Lectura 2 d.25 n.69]) requires the coming together of intellect and free will, and there can be a defect in this act from a defect of the will although a defect in knowledge does not precede.

143. So therefore, if an act of willing of a created will require the coming together of the created will and the divine will, there can be a defect in this act of willing from a defect of the former cause; and this because that cause could give rightness to the act, and is bound to give it, and yet does not give it; but the latter cause, although it is not bound to give the rightness, yet it would give it, as far as depends on itself, if the created will cooperated. For, universally, whatever God has given antecedently he would give consequently (as far as depends on himself) provided there were no impediment; but by giving free will, he has antecedently given right acts, which are in the power of the will; and therefore, as far as concerns his own part, he has given rightness to every act of the will - and he would give it consequently to the will if the will itself were, on its own part, to do rightly any elicited act.

144. There is a defect, then, in the effect of the two causes, not because of a defect in the higher cause, but because of one in the lower cause; not because the higher cause causes rightness in fact and the inferior one causes wrongness, but because the higher cause - as far as depends on itself - would cause rightness if the lower cause were, according to its own causality, to cause it. And therefore, the fact that rightness is not caused is because the second cause - as far as belongs to itself - does not cause it.a

a. a[Interpolation] On the contrary: the prior cause is determined first to causing rightness or not. Response: let it be that it is determined to causing rightness when the second cause determines itself to not acting rightly. It is also truly the case that what is necessary [sc. God giving rightness] is sometimes voluntary [sc. the created will choosing not to give rightness].

145. And if objection is made (as it was made [n.93]) about the two instants of nature, that in the first instant God would give rightness to the act - I reply:

I say that the priority that includes, without contradiction, ‘able to exist in the absence of each other’ is not an order in causes as causes cause a common effect but as they cause simultaneously. For just as, when speaking of diverse kinds of cause, the matter does not act as matter prior in time to the efficient cause acting on it (as if a thing could without contradiction have acted as matter and not have been acted on, or conversely), but only prior in nature, that is, the one causes more perfectly before the other causes - so although, in the same kind of cause, ordered diverse causes have an order according to causing more or less perfectly, yet they do not have a priority of nature that would mean ‘being able to be in the absence of the other’ in respect of some third thing; rather, just as the matter acts as matter and the efficient cause acts on it in one instant of nature, so two ordered efficient causes cause the common effect in one instant of nature, so that neither then causes without the other. But that a non-right effect is caused, this is not then because of the prior cause (which, as far as depends on itself, would cause rightly if the second would), but because of a defect of the second cause, which has it in its power to cause or not to cause along with the first cause - and if it does not cause along with the first cause the way it is bound to do, there is no rectitude in the effect common to both of them.

146. From this comes response to the objections.

To the first [n.134] that not only is the wise man wise because he is bound by the precept not to destroy his neighbor, and so he cannot be one to make his neighbor worse, but from the wise man’s perfection it also follows that, while he remains wise, he cannot be the first reason for his neighbor falling, and to this extent Augustine’s reason [n.131] does hold; for God is “more excelling than any efficient cause” - that is, his will is simply more perfect, because it is not the first reason for the failing of anyone whom it can act along with.

147. To the second [n.136] the reply is that although God does not necessarily cause the entity belonging to this act, yet he has so disposed things that, whatever he gave antecedently, he gives consequently - as far as concerns his own part [n.136].

148. But then a doubt arises about the principal question. For although the point is saved that sin is not ascribed to God as cause but to the created will [nn.142-145], yet it is not shown that God cannot be the first cause of the failing of the created will; for from the fact that he causes rightness freely and prior to the created will doing so, it seems still to be the case that he could first fail to cause rightness before the created will fails to cause it [nn.91, 135] - and thus he can be the first reason for failure, although this is not because of that law of his which God gave (‘whatever he gave antecedently he gives consequently’) [n.147].

149. I reply. That God cannot in himself sin is plain from the fact that neither can he be turned away from himself formally, because he cannot fail to love himself supremely and in ordered way and with all the required circumstances (otherwise either he could love himself in disordered way or he could change, both of which are impossible); nor even can he be turned virtually from himself, because nothing other than himself is a necessary thing for him to love [n.147]; for anything other than himself, because it is willed by him and willed thus (as for this time, and from this, and so), is willed in ordered way.

150. But why cannot God be the first reason for failing in a created will?

I reply: if God freely does not cause the rightness that should exist in the act of a created will - and this because of his own will’s freedom and not because of a defect in the created will not voluntarily cooperating - then there is no cause of sin in the created will, because there is no lack of due justice; for justice is not due from the created will save insofar as this will has the power to act rightly, such that no removal is presupposed of a prior cause, whose removal would make the will not able to act rightly. If God then were the first cause not making rightness, the non-right act would not be sin.

151. To the other objection, about punishment [n.137], the answer will be plain in the third [nn.185-88] of these four questions [nn.1, 10, 15, 20].

152. To the next objection [n.138], about grace, the answer is plain from what has been said [n.150], because if God, by immediately withdrawing his support, were to annihilate grace without a defect by the will in its operating, the lack of grace would not be a sin, because it would not be a lack of due justice; for the will is not debtor for the justice save as the will has it in its power to preserve justice, namely so as not to corrupt it by demerit. So, although privation of grace is a greater evil than privation of actual justice, yet the privation of grace can come from God’s not acting, that is, from his not preserving it - but not first from his not acting, but from his not acting for this reason, that the will demerited, and because of this demeriting God removes the maintenance of his preservation from the grace; however, as to the actual rectitude, if there is a first sin, there is no sin or demerit preceding it whereby God could withdraw himself so that the rectitude, as far as concerns God’s part, is not present. Therefore, the privation of grace is now a sin insofar as it is a privation of due justice, which the will has deprived itself of by demerit, although the annihilation of the grace is from God’s not causing grace; but if the privation of grace were not because of some prior wrongness in the will, it would not be sin.

153. As to the objection to the reasoning of Anselm [nn.139-40], it could be said that the reasoning does not involve a contradiction, because it equivocates over the term ‘willing’ - for ‘being right’ includes the will’s willing what God wills it to will [n.140]; so God wills with signifying will and antecedently, not with well-pleased will and consequently - because at the instant at which the created will sins, God does not, by consequent will or will of being well pleased, will the created will to will this. So when the inference is drawn that God ‘does not will me to will what he wills me to will’ [n.140], there is no contradiction, because will of being well pleased and consequently is denied but signifying will and antecedently is affirmed; for otherwise (as was argued) it does absolutely seem that the created will could not sin, which is false, and that God cannot by his absolute power take away rightness without demerit of the will, and thus that he cannot by his absolute power make rightness without merit of the created will, both of which are false.

154. However it is possible, by expounding Anselm’s argument there [n.139], to say that his reason proves that God cannot by a positive act take rightness away from the will, because then he would take it away willingly, and so he willingly wills, by will of being well pleased, that I do not will what, by antecedent will, he wills that I will; but this result, although it does not involve a contradiction, is nevertheless false: whatever he wills by antecedent will he wills also by will of being well pleased and consequently (as far as concerns himself), provided no impediment in the created will is put in the way [n.143]. But if rightness is removed without act of mine then I am not putting any impediment in the way; so, in the case posited, God’s ‘willing by will of being well pleased that I do not will what he wills by antecedent will that I will’ is false, even though it does not include a contradiction; and then Anselm’s reason proves no more than that without demerit of the created will God cannot by his ordained power take rightness away from the will [n.141]; but it does not prove this of God’s absolute power - nor even does it prove that God cannot take rightness away negatively, and that because of the demerit of the created will.