[Appendix] Twenty Third Distinction

Single Question. Whether God could make the Will of a Rational Creature to be naturally Incapable of Sin

Bonaventure, Sent.2 d.23 q.1 a.2
Scotus, Sent.2 d.23 q.1
Richard of St. Victor, Sent.2 d.23 q.1
Durandus, Sent.2 d.23 q.1
John Bacconitanus, Sent.2 d.23 q.1

1. About the twenty third distinction the question asked is whether God can make a created will to be incapable of sin.

2. That he can: for Anselm says, On Free Will 2, that being able to sin is not freedom nor part of freedom; but God can make a thing to be without that which is not part of its essence; therefore etc.

3. Again the will necessarily wills the end; so there can be a will that necessarily wills what is necessary for the end; therefore etc. The antecedent is plain from Augustine, On the Trinity 13, when he says that everyone wants blessedness. The proof of the consequence is that the tendency to the end and to what is necessary for the end is the same.

4. Again God can make a creature to be incapable of sin by grace; therefore he can make it to be so by nature. The antecedent is plain about the blessed. The proof of the consequence is that there is no contradiction in there being a single nature that contains true perfection of will and of grace at the same time. For it would not for this reason be infinite

5. To the contrary is Anselm, Why God Man 2.10, and Augustine, Against Maximinus 3.13, and Jerome, Tractate on the Prodigal Son, for all three agree in the conclusion that God is by nature incapable of sin.

To the Question

6. I reply by conceding, because of Master Lombard’s authority, a negative answer to the question. There is a probable reason for this: every will that is not right of its own understanding, but has a superior right understanding different from itself, can be discrepant from the first right understanding, if it is left to itself; but every created will is of this sort. The reason is that the adequate object of the will is the common good convertible with being; now such good is indifferent as to real good and apparent good; but a power left to itself has power also for whatever is per se conceived under its per se object; therefore every created will left to itself has power for the right good and for the apparent good, and consequently is able to will wrongly.

To the Arguments

7. To the first main argument [n.2] I say that having power for what is formally a sin, namely for privation of rectitude or of due circumstance in an act, is not part of freedom; but having power for the substance of an act to which such privation and deformity is annexed is part of freedom.

8. As to the second [n.3], one can deny the antecedent, because the will does not will the end necessarily, at least in not having the ability not to will, as was said above in book 1 d.1 q.4. However the consequence does not hold of the end and of what is for the end. Nor is the proof of the antecedent and consequence valid.

9. To the third I say that, although a blessed created will is by grace incapable of sin (which will be discussed in book 4 d.1 q.6), yet the consequence is false; for whenever things are so disposed to each other that they are primarily diverse, one of them can never be intensified in its essence so much, short of infinity, that it contain the unity of the other. An example about matter and form and about accident and subject: a subject formally finite in its essence can never contain the function or office of an accident; but the will and grace are disposed to each other as subject and accident; for the will has in its formal idea that it is perfectible by grace, and grace has that it is perfecting, etc.