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Forty Fourth Distinction.
Single Question. Whether the Power to Sin is from God
1. Concerning the forty fourth distinction I ask whether the power to sin is from God.a
a. a[Interpolation] About this forty fourth distinction, whether the Master deals with the power to sin, the question asked is:
2. It seems that it is not:
Accordinga to Anselm OnFreeChoice ch.1 “being able to sin is neither freedom nor part of freedom;” so, as free choice is from God, the power to sin is not from him. But it is not from God as it is something other than free choice; therefore in no way is it from God.b
a. a[Interpolation] Because what is not a power is not a power from God; but the power to sin is not a power; the proof is that if it were a power, it would be a free power; but according to Anselm...
b. b[Interpolation] Further, if the power to sin were from God, then it would exist in God. Proof of the consequence: God is the equivocal cause with respect to everything created by him; but the effect is contained more eminently in an equivocal cause (and especially in the first cause) than in itself; therefore if God were the cause of the power to sin, this power will exist more in God, which is unacceptable.
Further, every power in the universe that is from God has some order to the other powers of the universe, because what is from God is ordered; but the power to sin cannot have any order to the other powers - for I ask whether it is a higher power, or an intermediate one, or the lowest one; it is not a higher power because it does not belong to God to whom supreme power belongs (likewise, since it is a defective power it is not the supreme power); nor is it an intermediate power or the lowest one, because then it could have a superior power commanding it, and so it would not be free.
3. On the contrary:
The Master adduces authorities in the text, as [Romans 13, where the Apostle maintains that “there is no power but from God;” and, after having adduced authorities from Scripture, Augustine (“there is no power, not even for sin, save from God,” Sermon 62.8 n.13), and Gregory, the Master concludes, “By these and several other authorities it is evidently shown that there is no power of good or evil in anything save from God, even if the justice of it escapes you.”]
I. To the Question
4. Response.
The power to sin means either a direct ordering to an act of sin or the foundation of this ordering, by reason of which he who has it is said to be able to sin.
5. If in the former way the ordering is either to the act substrate [sc. to sin] or to the deformity in the act. If in the first of these, the order is from God,a as are both the extremes of the order; and God too, and not just the created will, has power over the substrate act, because he himself causes it [dd.34-37 nn.22-26], according to one opinion [sc. Scotus’ own, dd.34-37 nn.119-123, 97]. If in the second of these, this ordering to sin is nothing, just as the term of it too is nothing; and so it is not from God.b
a. a[Interpolation] The power to sin can be taken either for the power that is the principle of the act, or for the power as it states an order to the act of sin, just as in other cases the power to see can be taken for the principle of vision or for the order to the act of seeing. If it is taken in the second way, then the order is to the act substrate to the deformity, and thus such order is from God.
b. b[Interpolation] Or this order is to the deformity that is in the act of sin; and because such order is nothing, just as its term - namely ‘to sin’ - is also nothing, so it is not from God.
6. But if we speak of the foundation of the order, I say that something positive is the foundation of this order, taking order in both ways of taking it.a For just as in the case of passive powers the proximate subject of the habit and of the privation is the same, so too a free active power that is defectible is - in acting and in failing - immediate to opposites: to rectitude certainly when acting and to sin when failing; and this absolute subject is, in respect of both, the proper power, in the way that a power can exist in respect of both, namely by being effective or defective.
In this way is the power to sin from God, that is, the nature whereby the one who has the nature is able to sin; being able to sin indeed not by effecting but by defecting, of which defecting the absolute subject is the proximate reason.
a. a[Interpolation] But if the power to sin is taken for the power as principle, which is the foundation of this order and respect, I say that there are distinct ideas in it as it is such, ideas corresponding to two things in the act, namely the substance of the act and the deformity; for by reason of the freedom that is in it, the power as principle founds an order to an act really positive, but there is a limitation attached to freedom of choice in a creature, by reason of which it founds an order to deformity in the act; for this limitation takes from freedom the perfection that freedom has in God, where it is a perfection simply, simply in the sense that it cannot fail. I say therefore that this totality, namely ‘limited free power’, is the foundation of this order in both ways of taking the order, namely to the act in itself and to the deformity - and such foundation is called the power to sin.
7. And if the objection is made that the will is always deficient as it is from nothing, not from anything positive in it, I reply that being defectible, that is, being able to return to nothing, is consequent to every creature, because every creature is from nothing; but to be defectible like this, namely by sinning, is proper to this nature and is consequent to it by the reason whereby it is this specific nature, which nature is able to be a principle of opposites (namely by acting and by defecting).59
II. To the Principal Argument
8. To Anselm [n.2]a I say that freedom absolutely is a perfection simply; so, according to him, it is posited as existing formally in God. Freedom in us is limited, but it can be considered according to its formal reason without the limitation, and then it is not a limited perfection but a perfection simply (an example: wisdom is a perfection simply and the idea of it is also absolutely in us; and yet not only so, but with a limitation, in the sense that our wisdom includes two things, one of which is a perfection simply and the other not, but includes the limitation). Thus I say that this will of this species, which is in us, includes liberty, which is a perfection simply; but it does not include it alone but with a limitation, and this limitation is not a perfection simply; by reason of the first the ability to sin does not belong to it, nor is it the proximate foundation of the order to being actually deficient, but by reason of the second.
a. a[Interpolation] The answer to the first argument can be clear from what was said. But as to the intention of Anselm:
9. The authority of Anselm must therefore be expounded in this way, that being able to sin is not part of freedom as freedom is a perfection simply, nor is anything else proved by Anselm’s argument about the ability to sin not existing in God. But if this created freedom is taken according to its own order, the ability to sin is not part of it; however, as it states the proximate foundation of this order, then the ability to sin is part of it.a But as this power is some positive being, thusb is it from God, “for from him and in him and through him all things are; to whom be honor and glory for every and ever. Amen” [Romans 11.36].
a. a[Interpolation] To the second [n.2 interpolation b] I say that the power to sin, which is the foundation, is more eminently in God than in the creature. But that this power is thus more eminently in God is not because it is a power for immediately causing that act [sc. sin] in himself, just as the power to run is in God, but not so that he can cause an act of running in himself immediately, but in another in whom running is of a nature to exist.
You will say that by the same reason the act of sinning can exist eminently in God.
One must reply that the act of sinning as concerns what is positive in it (namely the substrate act) is in God.
To the third [n.2 interpolation b] one must say that the power to sin has an order to other powers as it is the foundation of the order to act, and it is a higher power; but if the discussion is about the totality of it, then, by reason of the privation, it would be last in order.
But of what sort is it by reason of the positive element in it?
One can say that order is found in three ways in powers: either by reason of the terms that they are powers for, or from themselves considered in themselves, or from their mode of operating.
By reason of the terms I say that the power is not higher, because there is a power in nature for substantial form, but this power is for an accidental form; but every substantial form is more perfect than an accidental form.
In the other two ways the power can be higher:
In the first way as it is in itself, as to the nature it exists in, because it exists in a nobler nature (namely an intellectual nature), and in a supreme nature (as the angelic nature); and it is the supreme power in that nature.
But as to the mode of operation it can be said to be a more perfect power; for the more something is more absolute in relation to a posterior, the more perfect it is; hence because God is most perfect, there is in him no real respect to a posterior. Also, the more something is more absolute in relation to a posterior, the more the posterior depends on it - as is plain in the case of God, because he has such perfection. Now the will is, among the other powers, more absolute in relation to a posterior; for the other powers depend on it in their acts, but it, in its idea of cause, depends on none.
b. b[Interpolation] Therefore it is plain from what has been said that the power to sin is from God in every way in which it is something positive.