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.