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Single Question. Whether Sins Dismissed through Penitence Return the Same in Number in the Recidivist who Backslides
1. “And with many authorities.” [Lombard, Sent. IV d.22 ch.1 n.1].
2. The twenty second distinction. About this distinction I ask a single question: whether sins dismissed through penitence return in the recidivist the same in number.
3. It seems that they do:
Augustine Against the Donatists 1 ch.12 n.20 [Lombard, Sent. IV d.22 ch.1 n.7], “That dismissed sins return where fraternal charity is not is very openly taught by the Lord in the Gospel, in the case of the servant from whom his lord sought back the debt that was dismissed, because the servant did not wish to dismiss his fellow servant’s debt,” Matthew 18.32-34. And on this authority of Christ are founded all the statements of the doctors who say that sins return, many of whose authorities are put in the text [Lombard, ibid., nn.2-7].
4. Again, James 2.10, “He who offends in one thing is made guilty of all.”
5. Again, if one who is contrite about sin afterwards despises confession, then either the same sin returns, and so the proposed conclusion is obtained, or it does not, and thus it will be dismissed without the second and third parts of penitence [d.16 q.1, nn.9-15], which is unacceptable.
6. Again, a shadow can return the same in number, because a privation is only numbered from the numbering of the subject or from the numbering of the positive habit it is opposed to; but a shadow, which follows light, has the same subject as the preceding shadow, and it is the privation of the same light in number, because the same light would remain in number if the shadow were not present; 
therefore in the same way a sin, which is a sort of spiritual shadow in the mind, can return the same in number.
7. To the contrary:
Something successive does not return the same in number; sin is of this sort; therefore etc 
. Proof of the minor, because then contradictories could be true at the same time; for let one contradictory be true at this instant; if this instant returns afterwards the same in number in the recidivist, it will be possible for the other contradictory to be true.68
8. Again, sin is not in anyone save through some act of the sinner; but the act does not return the same in number in a recidivist.
I. To the Question
9. In this question one must first see if it be possible by the absolute power of God for the same sin to return the same in number; second if by the ordained power of God it can in any way return the same in number; third, how in fact it can be said to return in the recidivist.
A. Whether it be Possible by the Absolute Power of God for the Same Sin in Number to Return
1. Opinion of Others
10. About the first it is said [Richard of Middleton, Sent. IV d.22 princ. 1 q.1] that it is not possible, because “nothing can return the same in number save by divine power; but sin cannot by the power of God return as to guilt the same in number, because, according to Augustine 83 Questions 83 q.3, ‘No one through God’s authorship becomes worse’.”
2. Rejection of the Opinion
11. Against this: a lie, as was said in d.14 q.1 nn.17, 30, 34, can be understood, in relation to the issue at hand, in two ways, when speaking of actual sin, of course: in one way the actual disorder, in the other way the obligation to penalty following the act. The first is called ‘fault in act’, the second ‘guilt following from the fault’. Now the wrongness that properly is of a nature to be in the act does not properly remain after the act: first because a privation of a nature to be in a proper and determinate subject does not properly remain without that subject; second because then opposites could exist at the same time. For if some disorder proper to the fault of fraternal hatred remained after the act, and enjoyment of the same brother were to follow later, opposite faults would exist at the same time, because immoderate hatred and immoderate enjoyment of the same person would remain. By this fact, then, is what was said there true [ibid. n.34], that after an act of sin passes away nothing besides habitual injustice, that is, lack of grace, remains in the soul save the proper obligation to the penalty corresponding to the actual sin.
12. From this follows that the aforesaid reason [n.10] does not prove the point at issue, because if it be speaking of the disorder or wrongness that is in the actual fault, it is doubtful whether it proves that that cannot return; but the question in the point at issue is not about that but about the obligation to penalty.
13. And the proof drawn from Augustine [n.10] is not valid, because although a man through God’s authorship not become worse with the evil of fault, yet he can become bad with the evil of penalty and be much more obligated to penalty, since no one is justly obligated to a penalty save by act of God’s will.
14. Again, God can obligate this person at time b to the same penalty that he obligates him to at time a; therefore this person also can be obligated to the same penalty and consequently have the same guilt (and I call a and b instants between which succeeds an intermediate time in which he is not thus obligated). The proof of the antecedent is that my will too can want this, namely to want first to order this person to a penalty and second to want not to order him to a penalty under this condition, namely if he not offend again; and if he do offend again, to want from that point to order him to the same penalty.
15. If you say that my will in this is not just and consequently the like cannot belong to the divine will - on the contrary, Gratian Decretum p.2 cause 12 q.2 ch.58, “he who has been set free can again, because of ingratitude, be justly subjected justly to the penalty of servitude;” therefore similarly in the issue at hand.
16. If it be said that this reasoning does not prove that the same obligation in number returns to the same penalty in number, although an obligation to the same penalty in number return (for these are diverse: ‘obligation to the same penalty’ and ‘the same obligation to the same penalty’; and there is confirmation, because God’s volition to inflict a penalty on this person at time a and time b is not the same volition in idea, although it be the same volition in reality, for a divine volition is different in idea according to diversity of objects) - on the contrary: if he not be penitent in the intermediate time, not only would an obligation remain to the penalty but also the same obligation; but whatever God can do concerning a creature while some continuation remains that is no part of what is willed, that can he do with the continuation removed, because it is not anything of the essence of what is willed; therefore etc .
3. Scotus’ own Response
17. Thus therefore can it be said as concerns this article that, whether in a recidivist or someone who is not a recidivist (because the divine act does not depend on an extrinsic sin of the recidivist), God can of his absolute power bring back an obligation of him to the same penalty as before, and even to the same obligation. And so in the same way in which a sin remains after the act (because only the obligation to a penalty remains) can the same sin in number return, by the absolute power of God, not only in the recidivist but in the non-recidivist.
B. Whether by the Ordained Power of God the Same Sin in Number could in Any Way Return
1. Response
18. About the second article [n.9] I say that God has disposed that the sins of the penitent are covered over after penitence, that is, that, according to Augustine expounding Psalm 31.1, “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven etc .” [Expositions of Psalms ps.31 exposition 2 n.9], they are seen no more for vengeance and, according to Nahum 1.9, “God will not pass judgment on it twice.” And therefore , by the ordained power of God, the same obligation cannot return, nor return to the same penalty, after it has been extinguished. And this is what is contained in Gratian, Decretum p.2 cause 33 q.3 d.4 ch.24, “The divine clemency does not suffer dismissed sins to return for vengeance anymore.”
2. Objection and its Solution
19. To the contrary:
Good works made dead by sin revive afterwards in him who rises, as [Ps.]Augustine says [On True and False Penance ch.14 n.29], and it is in the text [Lombard, Sent. IV d.15 ch.6 n.3], “It is a pious thing to believe that, when he has by the grace of God destroyed in man prior evils, he will also reward goods, so too, when he has destroyed what he finds not to be his own, he loves the good that he has planted in him.”
20. Again, evils are related to punishment as goods are to reward; but goods previously done come alive again for reward; therefore, evils too return for punishment.
21. It could in one way be said [sc. in reply to n.19] that this is superabundant divine mercy, that good things always live in his acceptation (meritorious goods, I say) and a reward would always have to be returned for them unless, because of a new fault, there were an indisposition in the receiver. But evils are totally extinguished such that neither in themselves, nor in the divine understanding or will, do they remain ordained for vengeance. And therefore Augustine, in response to a certain objection by infidels who prove that God does not always want to dismiss sins (“for they say that then God is an inciter of evil and that they to whom he always gives grace always please him”), replies [On True and False Penance ch.5 n.11]: “It is agreed that sins much displease him who is always at the ready to destroy them; for if he love them, he would not thus destroy them;” and it is in Gratian, Decretum [p.2 cause 33 q. 3; Lombard, Sent. IV d.14 ch.5 n.2].
22. And, according to this way, an example from the jurists would be good for the purpose in hand, that some right remains for someone for whom, because of some impediment, action does not remain, or does not belong. Thus in the case of someone who possesses good merits in the divine acceptation, but ones deadened by mortal sin, there remains the whole right that corresponds, for eternal life, to those merits. But the action of them does not remain as long as he is an enemy; and if he is always an enemy, the action ceases permanently. But when enmity contracted by a new mortal sin ceases, a new right does not return, but action according to the old right is due to him. And in the case of remitted evil the right does not remain nor the action, because God does not have the right of revenge over remitted sin; for penitence has so perfectly covered his sin and remitted it that no action remain to God for taking vengeance.
23. Although this be said well in commendation of the excellent mercy of God, it can yet in some way be reduced to justice, in this way: sin is not remitted unless at least the debt for eternal penalty is commuted into debt for temporal penalty; and when the commutation has been done, never is the guilt as a rule remitted unless the temporal penalty is in itself paid or in an equivalent penalty. And consequently, after mortal sin has first been remitted in itself and its penalty paid, nothing of right remains afterwards whereby any penalty for the sin is to be required from the penitent. But after merit worthy of eternal life, never is this worth for eternal good commuted, according to justice, into some temporal good; therefore never does that right expire until the eternal good is paid. But it is not paid to the wayfarer while he is wayfarer. Therefore the right always remains, though extinct through mortal sin, because the carrying out of his right is not then due to him.
24. The cases, then, of reward for dead merits and of the coming back of sins remitted are not alike, not only because of divine mercy (which is indeed true), but also because of the justice that commutes the eternal there to the temporal. But not so here [sc. the case of dead merits].
25. The answer to the second [n.20] is plain from the same point, that evils do not have the like relationship in this respect to punishment that goods have to reward, because evils can be punished temporally and sufficiently (if the eternal penalty have been commuted into a temporal one), but good merits cannot be rewarded sufficiently by such commutation, nor rewarded consequently unless the eternal reward itself be conferred on them, which never happens to a wayfarer. And therefore his right always remains safe for the glory that he has acquired through those merits.
3. Objection to the Last Statement and its Solution
26. Against this [n.25]: in that case everyone who rises from mortal sin would rise in greater grace than the grace from which he fell, because he would rise in all the now revived goods that he had before; and, besides this, in the act of penitence through which he rises and which he adds to the past ones; and so he would rise in greater grace. But this is unacceptable: first because not everyone who falls always falls more seriously than he fell before, nor does he therefore rise, when he rises, more graced than he was before; second because the first grace can be greater or lesser, and consequently can be least; but the first grace is acquired through penitence; therefore it is possible that sometimes the grace recovered through penitence is the least.
27. To this I say that to have more merits in divine acceptation (merits kept in their order to the reward that is to be rendered for them) is not the same as to have greater grace intensively. For universally, to every merit there corresponds and is due not only some accidental reward but some essential reward. The fact is plain, because if someone had this merit alone [sc. first grace through penitence, n.26], without any other merit, he would be beatified not precisely in the degree in which, without merits, he would be beatified on account of grace alone (as a baptized child is) - for the grace of anyone who has his own merit exceeds the glory of such a child. Therefore, every merit, following other merits already possessed, requires, corresponding to it, its proper essential degree of glory; and yet grace is not at once increased by any merit, nor is he who has more merits always in greater grace.
28. Although therefore grace alone suffice for some glory, yet to merits there corresponds some determinate degree, at least, of glory, though to a greater grace without merits there correspond a greater glory than to a lesser grace. However, in every person the same there is put a merit of grace that is added on, although by it grace is not immediately made more intense. However there does correspond to it a degree of glory beyond the degree that corresponds precisely to the grace.
29. Through this I say to the argument [n.26] that he who rises has more merits in the acceptation of God than when he fell, and consequently, in this respect, he is ordained to a greater glory; but it is not necessary that he rise in greater grace, because a greater or lesser grace is given then to him according to his disposition to detest intensely or weakly the sin he committed.
4. A Further Objection and its Solution
30. But on the contrary [to n.29]:
Then he would carry back an advantage from his fall, since he rises more worthy of reward in acceptation.
31. Besides, the response given [n.29] seems to include things repugnant to each other; because if he is worthy of a greater glory when he rises than when he fell, and he fell from a great grace whereby he was worthy of a great glory, then he does not rise in a little grace, because that single merit, which by rising he adds on, would not add as much glory as was the glory taken away by the deficiency of second grace (or its being lesser with respect to first grace); therefore etc .69
32. To the first [n.30] I say that he does not obtain an advantage but a great disadvantage, not only because he sinned, but because (as to the issue at hand) the whole time he remained in sin is lost to him, and in that time he could have multiplied merits, had he then remained in grace.
33. To the second [n.31] I say that if one removes what in glory corresponds to merits (and let it be called b) from what in it corresponds to grace (and let it be called a), perhaps a does exceed b; and when he rises, because all his prior merits live in God’s acceptation, the right and dignity for the whole of b returns; but the right for a does not return to him, if the second grace is less than the first; therefore the merits live again, but the prior grace does not live again.
34. And this is sufficiently consonant with justice, because the prior grace was a gift of God only, but the merits were in some way the works of man; and therefore are they always preserved for him in divine acceptation; but the grace is not so preserved for him that he should, because he had it, be always equally ordered to a reward on account of it - but only if he now has it.
35. This way, by holding that the essential degree of glory corresponds to merit [n.34], is consonant with Scripture, which in many places asserts this sentence of divine justice, that it “renders to each man according to his works” [Psalm 61.12, Romans 2.6]; but nowhere in Scripture does one get that he renders to each according to what he has. And it is consonant with the observance of divine Law, because it is useful to do continually, as far as possible, meritorious works according to the Law, though the works are weak to such degree that through them grace is not at once increased; because a determinate degree of glory corresponds to individuals in God’s acceptation.70
36. Nor is it as expedient to preserve grace as it is to do a weak work that grace is not increased by, because although he who thus weakly acts not have greater grace through his work than he who sleeps (in whom grace is preserved without such work), yet he does not labor in vain, nor does he exceed in nothing him who slept; rather by the fact that he worked he is now worthy of some eternal good which the former is not worthy of.
5. Two Corollaries
37. From these points follow two corollaries:
One is that there is someone, worthy of greater glory (speaking of what in glory corresponds to merits, and about worth not proximately but remotely, namely according to right, but suspended right), who is damned, and there is another, worthy of much less glory, who in this way is saved. But this is for the reason that this other is worthy in an accessible way, because he now has right that is unsuspended. He is also worthy of the other element in glory corresponding to grace, of which he who is damned is not worthy; and to no one is what corresponds to merits given without what corresponds to grace, but conversely.
38. Also, if what corresponds to merit is of the same idea as what corresponds to grace, and if what corresponds to merit is by every merit increased in divine acceptation, then to completed merits corresponds as much glory as what corresponds to grace. Since, therefore, he who has grace in a determinate degree would be saved, and he who has all the merits, but dead merits, would be damned, then he who is worthy, but with remote and suspended worth (and is thus worthy of much greater glory), will be damned; and he who is worthy with an accessible worth of much lesser glory will be saved. And it is no wonder that to an enemy, while he is an enemy, all past goods whatever are not sufficient for obtaining reward.
39. The second corollary is that the merits, to which a great degree of glory corresponds, while they are dead, cannot merit the least grace - otherwise he who had fallen from many merits would already have merited to rise from his fall through the first grace that, because of those merits, was to be conferred on him. And yet I do not believe that the dead merits have altogether no effect in divine acceptation for giving first grace to him who has lapsed; because although, in strict justice, this enemy of God is not worthy with worth accessible to any grace and glory, yet the excellent mercy of God, because of that person’s preceding though now dead merits, more quickly gives hum grace for rising up again.
40. Hence, just as I believe that a more perfect man falls, because of his greater ingratitude, more gravely, so I believe that, other things being equal, he rises again more quickly because of the kindness of God, who in some way accepts his past merits for this purpose. Hence, I heard one time of a man, before very perfect and afterwards fallen very deep, who, although he would, because of his evil deeds, have to be adjudged for death, was most mercifully visited, and suddenly the most perfect penitence was breathed into him. This should well attract anyone to act meritoriously as much as he can always, because whether he is going to remain or whether he is going to fall, [his past merits] will not be totally forgotten before God.
C. How in Fact the Same Sin in Number can be Said to Return in the Recidivist
1. Response
41. About the third main article [n.9] I say that sin dismissed returns as a circumstance worsening the sin by which the sinner fell back.
42. And this in two ways:
First, because the more someone receives from another a benefit that is more undue to him, the more is he bound to that other by the law of gratitude - even if the benefit received be less undue, and consequently more if the benefit received be equally undue. But to someone existing in sin God owes nothing save a penalty; therefore, if God confer grace on him, this will be a gift most gratuitously and liberally conferred, and especially if the grace is equal to the grace of the innocent. Therefore, by the law of gratitude he is, because of this freely conferred gift, especially obligated to God - and consequently, when offending afterwards against him, he sins, because of the ingratitude, more gravely.
43. Second, because the more someone is bound to something by more obligations, the more, if he transgresses, does he sin more gravely. But a penitent, as often as he is worthily penitent, obligates himself, at least in desire, to not committing sin in the future, because without such purpose the penitence is not worthy; and besides this, he is constrained to not committing sin by the same law as that by which the innocent is constrained. Therefore, if he sins afterwards, he transgresses a double law obligating him to not committing transgression, namely both the general one [sc. not to sin] and this special one about keeping a promise [sc. the promise made in penitence], which obligates most of all as to a promise made to God, and as to something that pertains to the honor of God.
2. Objections and their Solution
44. On the contrary:
A sin is not made worse by that by which, when it does not exist, nay when its opposite exists, the sin is as equally or more grave. If this person had not been penitent before, nay had always been innocent, and if now he sin, he would sin more gravely than he sins now; therefore etc . [sc. therefore a penitent does not (contrary to n.43) sin more because he sins after penitence]. Proof of the minor, because he who falls from a state of innocence sins more gravely than he who falls from a state of penitence, both because he for whom God has preserved innocence receives a greater benefit than he to whom God conceded penitence after sin, and because the innocent has less occasion for falling.
45. Again, when one falls from penitence one does not have to sin necessarily with two sins at the same time; therefore it is possible to sin with a single sin only; but by that one sin one could, by falling before from innocence, have sinned as equally gravely - as is plain by comparing it to any intensity of malice that belongs to sin;71 therefore etc .
46. [To the first] - As to the first [n.44]: I concede that to preserve innocence is a simply greater divine benefit than to allow penitence after sin. Hence God conferred a greater benefit on his Mother than on Mary Magdalene. Hence it is a singular glory and ornament in the blessed never to have fallen into sin.
47. And then to the argument: I deny the major, because it is possible for some sin to have now one circumstance making it worse and now another, and the one that makes it worse there can be graver than the one that makes it worse here; and these two circumstances can be repugnant to each other. And so here, the fact that penitence precedes makes sin worse, because it bestows ingratitude on it.
48. Likewise, to fall from innocence, because of the ingratitude, makes sin worse, and innocence and penitence are in a way repugnant; but to fall simply from innocence makes sin worse more.
49. But on the contrary is the verse of Luke 7.42-43: when about two debtors, one of whom the creditor forgave more to and the other less to, Christ asked Simon the question who would love the creditor more, Simon replied, “I suppose he to whom he gave more.” And the Lord approved this and said, “You have judged rightly.” But God gives nothing to the innocent in this way, and to the sinner he gives many things; therefore, a sinner is more bound to God, wherefore he is more ungrateful simply when he falls back.
50. I reply: ‘to give’ can be understood absolutely, as it is an act of will freely communicating something, or as in ‘to condone’ or ‘to remit’, the way it is taken when it is said ‘he for-gave sins’. In the first way it is true that he to whom more is given is more bound to the giver, and in this way I say that God gave a greater gift to the innocent than to him for whom he remitted sin. In the second way, God gives more to the penitent than to the innocent, because the innocent does not have what may in this way be ‘for-given’ him. And if the major then is taken, namely that ‘he is bound to love more who has been given, that is, remitted more’, it is true that, when comparing the two, less is given to one of them and more to the other, and this if the only benefit given were only what is meant by ‘to remit’.
51. But there is no one to whom God for-gives few things (because he has committed few things) without some other gift being given to the same person, a gift greater than ‘to for-give’ (that is, to remit) more things, namely to preserve him from other things into which he could or would have fallen if he had not been preserved by God.
52. This agrees with the gloss of Augustine on Luke 7.47 [Sermons on Scripture, Sermo 99 ch.6 n.6], “things committed and things not committed are for-given,” because “there is no one who commits something without someone else being able, unless he were preserved, to commit the same thing.” Therefore he for whom they are dismissed is bound to love more, supply, ‘by reason of the remission’. But the other is bound to love for another reason, that he did not have things that needed to be dismissed, which was through divine preservation. And this reason requires a simply greater gratitude.
53. An example of this: if someone from his liberality concedes to someone all his property to use at will, but to another concedes some things as a loan and later, when he must repay them, remits them for him - who will love him more? I say that the first will, because he received a greater benefit, and yet more is remitted to the other. But the fact that the first has nothing needing to be dismissed for him, this is by the favor of him who freely conceded to him all his property.
54. Hence the proposition that ‘he for whom more is dismissed loves more the forgiver’ is only simply true of the forgiver by whose favor it is not the case that the one is not bound to as many things as the other is.
55. [To the second]: As to the second [n.45] I say that it is possible for a recidivist to sin with many sins, or as it were with many sins, if he deliberately act against the common law and against the law of gratitude and against the law of promises. But commonly the sin is not done in this way, because a sinner commonly desires only delight (though in disordered fashion), and he does not will that so many prohibitions be annexed to the delight. And to every sin is in this way conjoined disobedience and contempt and hatred of God and ingratitude and the like - not that the sinner have then an elicited act pertaining to each one of these, but he does implicitly insofar as he wills something to which all these are concomitant. I concede, therefore, that it is possible for a recidivist to sin with a single sin.
56. And when you infer ‘therefore he could have sinned equally gravely with that one sin when he fell from innocence’ - I concede it as far as concerns this part of the circumstance, namely of ingratitude and multiple obligation; yet he would have more gravely sinned then as concerns another circumstance, that he is more ungrateful in falling from innocence than in falling from penitence.
57. But on the contrary: suppose that he was penitent ten times, and on each occasion about ten mortal sins; after the tenth penitence he falls away sinning with as much lust as he sinned with in the first sin; then this sin will be one hundred times more grave than the first sin, because he is bound, by reason of each dismissed sin, not to fall, and so by reason of any of them there is a special ingratitude in falling; and he is bound not to sin by reason of any penitence, in which he promised not to sin.
58. I reply: no new fault is thus grave by some circumstance respecting a preceding penitence, because the circumstance may equal the gravity of the sin in itself or in its malice, and not perhaps in a hundredth part. Yet I concede that this circumstance of ingratitude and promise makes the sin worse - and the graver the more the good first conferred on him was not due (which is regularly the case of him who had more gravely sinned), and the more he promised many times (which is regularly the case of him who repented many times).
3. A First Doubt and its Solution
59. But what is simply graver: to fall looking back to a greater benefit, or to something bestowed more undue, or to more promises about not falling?
60. I reply: absolutely is the precept of the law of nature pertaining to gratitude more binding than is a new obligation contracted through one’s own promise, unless perhaps the principle or precept ‘keep promises’ is more obligating than the precept ‘be grateful to a benefactor according to his rank in giving benefit’.
4. A Second Doubt and is Solution
61. There still remains a doubt in this article: whether it is necessary in particular to confess preceding sins as aggravating circumstances?
62. I reply that although this be licit and perhaps useful, yet it does not seem necessary to confess them in particular, because insofar as they make things worse, they can be sufficiently expressed in confession without expressing the sins in particular previously dismissed, namely, by saying: ‘I have repented elsewhere of great and many sins and believe God has remitted them for me; and for that reason was I in now sinning more ungrateful’.
II. To the Initial Arguments
63. To the initial arguments:
As to the first [n.3], it is plain that the parable principally tends toward this, that the same penitence is demanded of the servant who did not want to dismiss his fellow servant’s debts as would have been exacted of him because of his main debt. For what is said there to him [Matthew 18.30, 34], send him to prison until he pay “the whole debt,” I understand relative to the issue at hand, that he would only pay the whole debt in paying the debt of damnation for it, by being sent to the prison of the damned; and so, to the issue at hand, he who falls back again is adjudged for the same penalty of damnation that he would have had because of his prior and previously dismissed sins - and a penalty equal as to duration because it is ‘until he pay back etc.’ But it does not follow that he would have an equal penalty as to intensity.
64. And so, one should say to all the authorities of the saints [n.3] founded on this parable of the Savior, that ‘sins return’, that is, that the obligation to damnation returns, and a graver obligation because of the re-sending of the dismissed sins.
65. To the second [n.4]: in this way is the authority of Blessed James to be understood, namely as to damnation, which is the general penalty for all mortal sins, “he is made guilty of all.” Or in another way (and it returns to the same) it is understood as to the turning away from the ultimate end, which turning away is common to every mortal sin. But ‘he is made guilty of all’ is not to be understood as to the special gravity of individual sins and not in any way as to grave sins the same in number or species.
66. To the third [n.5]:
In one way can it be said that if he who was contrite before despises confession later, he sins with a new mortal sin in that contempt; and yet the fault that was dismissed through contrition does not return, either as to the malice or as to the guilt. But there only always remains the temporal penalty due to it, though the penalty of damnation be due to a new mortal sin.
67. In another way it could be said that, when complete penitence is obtained (understand ‘complete’ as to the three parts of penitence, namely contrition, confession, and satisfaction [d.16 nn.18-24]), then the penalty of damnation is commuted into temporal penalty; but not so as to a sin for which contrition is had without the other two parts of penitence.
68. But the first response [n.66] is more acceptable, because sin is simply deleted in contrition, so that only the obligation to temporal penalty remains there; but if afterwards contempt of confession or of satisfaction follows, it is a new mortal sin, and made worse because of the earlier fault that in contrition was dismissed.
69. To the fourth [n.6] I say that the same shadow in number cannot return, at any rate by nature; because there cannot be the same negation, as neither the same affirmation, when an interruption is posited on this side and on that.
70. As to the proof [n.6], I say that unity of subject and of opposed habit is not sufficient for unity of privation, but unity of its continuation in the subject is required, in the way in which it can have being in a subject. This is shown by a likeness, that for unity of negation unity of affirmation does not suffice, for ‘non-Socrates’, which is the negation of one affirmation in number, can be not only many in number but be in many things diverse in genus and species, and be as many ‘beings’ as there are entities that are not Socrates. So too a privation can be a privation of the same form and yet not be the same. A privation can also be multiplied in the same receptive subject if there is an interruption, just as also the habit (of which the privation is the privation) would be multiplied if it were with interruption in the subject. For to repair something numerically the same, whether positive or privative or negative (as will be said in the material about resurrection [Ord. IV d.43 q.3 n.22, q.5 nn.4-6]), belongs to infinite power alone, namely God.