A. About Satisfaction Taken Generally

10. As to the first, there are five things that need looking at: first, what is the idea of the name; second, whether satisfaction for guilt in this way is possible for man; third, in what it consists and from whom; fourth, whether, as to the question, a proper penalty corresponds to every sin; fifth whether, following the difficulty touched on in the first two arguments [nn.3-4], one satisfaction can be separated from another.

1. About the Idea of the Name ‘Satisfaction’ Taken Generally

11. About the first point, one needs to note that the idea of satisfaction taken generally is this: satisfaction is the voluntary giving back of the equivalent of that which is otherwise not due.

12. The first point, namely ‘giving back’, is plain, because it is not an absolute gift; for the term ‘satis-’ [‘enough’] states commensuration with something correspondent that precedes.

13. As to the term ‘voluntary etc.’, this is plain, because if the giving back were involuntary it would not be ‘satis-faction’ [‘doing enough’] but ‘satis-passion’ [‘suffering enough’], and in this way he from whom the penalty due for a fault committed is unwillingly exacted suffers enough but does not do enough (= ‘satisfy’).

14. As to the term ‘equivalent etc.’, this is plain because the verbal element ‘satis-’ implies this; justice also requires this, giving satisfaction back for that which it corresponds to.

15. The fourth part, namely ‘otherwise not due’, is plain, because if it were otherwise due, satisfaction would not be made for it, for there would not be correspondence in justice with it but with something else.

16. And this idea of satisfaction applies to any contract and obligation whatever. For in this way can he who receives a benefit make satisfaction to the benefactor, and in this way can he who is loved to the lover, by recompensing equal love. And thus can this idea be found both in free acts of the will and in acts in any way necessary, namely contracts, where there is a sort of obligation necessitating the making of a return. Likewise, since guilt makes the delinquent a debtor to him against whom he sins, this idea of satisfaction can be found there, namely that he should return to him what is equivalent and otherwise not due, up to the amount he took away by sin.

2. Whether this Sort of Satisfaction for Guilt is Possible for Man

a. Anselm’s Solution

17. About the second [n.10] it is said [Anselm, Why God Man I ch.23] that it is not possible for man to make satisfaction to God for sin - to God, I say, whom he has offended.

18. First [Anselm, I ch.13], because by sin the honor due to God is taken away; but nothing equivalent to the honor of God can be returned to him by us.

19. Second [Anselm, I ch.21], because mortal sin is an infinite evil; for it is an evil as great as he against whom the sin is committed; nothing but a finite good can be given back to him by us;     therefore , it is not equivalent; therefore etc     . [it does not make satisfaction].

20. Again, from another middle term, namely from what is otherwise due [Augustine, 86 Diverse Questions q.68 n.6, Bernard, On Loving God ch.6 n.16, cited by Richard of Middleton, Sent. IV d.15 princ.1 q.2], argument is made thus, that whatever we can pay out to God of obeisance and honor is all due to him by reason of creation, governance, and redemption; therefore, we cannot pay out to him what is not due to him, even from the innocent, and consequently it is due to him otherwise than for sin.

21. It is said, therefore [Anselm, II chs.18-19], that the sinner can make satisfaction in virtue of the passion of Christ, because that passion is so far accepted by the Triune God that, by virtue of his passion, the satisfaction is accepted that, accepted by itself, would not be satisfaction.

b. What Should be Said of Anselm’s Solution

22. But if this opinion is taking its understanding about God’s absolute power, because God could not accept any act of a penitent as a just satisfaction for sin save insofar as this act is conjoined with the merit of Christ’s passion - here is disproof of it [cf. also Scotus, Lectura III d.20 nn.12-39].

23. First, because it is not impossible for the Son of God not to have been incarnate and, consequently, not to have suffered; and it would have been possible, along with this, for God to have brought the predestined to beatitude, and to have done so justly (without however excluding mercy). Therefore, it would have been possible for the penitent to have made satisfaction for himself - for God cannot beatify the sinner justly without satisfaction.

24. This is confirmed by Augustine, On the Trinity XIII ch.10 n.13, “There was also, indeed, another way possible for our redemption, namely other than by the incarnation and passion; but none was more agreeable to the healing of our misery.” Therefore, our fall could be healed in a way other than through the incarnation and passion of Christ.

25. Again the passion of Christ only destroys our fault as a meritorious cause, and consequently as a second cause, which is not of the essence of the thing; indeed, it is reduced to the genus of efficient cause. But whatever God can do through a second efficient cause he can do immediately; therefore he could, without it, justly and in ordered manner remit guilt.

26. But if it be said to these two arguments [nn.23, 25] that God could, without the mediation of Christ, have destroyed the fault of the wayfarer, and so have led him to beatitude (according to the first argument [n.23]), and have immediately justified him

(according to the second argument [n.25]); yet not by way of satisfaction (because there would not have been anything equivalent then to give back), but now there is a whole equivalent through the passion of Christ (but with this passion being such as to be a satisfaction for it) - On the contrary: satisfaction is a returning of equivalent for equivalent; but the sin turning away from God was as evil as the turning back to God out of charity was good; also, my sin took away as much good (and not more), and as much good can be in my act, as was of a nature to be in my act; so through that amount of good, therefore, can something altogether equivalent be given back.

27. If it be said that my act is not the equivalent in good of the evil in displeasure [sc. caused to God] unless the act be elicited by grace, but the first grace would only be given to a sinner by the passion of Christ - on the contrary, because the first grace can very well, by the absolute power of God, be given without the merit of the passion of Christ.

28. The proof is:

Because the supreme grace given to a creature is given to the soul of Christ, and without any merit; for in no way was his passion either displayed or foreseen in respect of the grace to be conferred on him; rather, it was foreseen that he was going to have grace first before his passion was to be accepted.

Again, the passion of Christ was a finite good, even when taken according to the whole idea of merit in it; because it was not an uncreated good, nor consequently was it accepted by God infinitely on the part of the object, because God was not blessed by willing or loving that passion as he is by loving his essence. If infinity in sin, therefore, would prohibit possible satisfaction, it will also prohibit it after the passion of Christ is in place.

c. Scotus’ own Solution

29. As concerns this article [n.10], it can be said that God could, of his absolute power, have given the sinner after attrition, as through a fitting disposition and merit by congruity, a grace by which the sinner’s movement would become contrition, and thus, by satisfaction, have destroyed sin, because by an act returning to God the equivalent of the good that sin took away.

30. This act could also be otherwise not due, because although (if God wished to obligate us) we be bound to God whatever we are and do, yet he, of his very great mercy, considering our weakness and difficulty in respect of good, did not wish to obligate us by way of rule save to the Decalogue; and he could then have ordained to obligate man only to the Decalogue, without incarnating Christ. Man, therefore, could then do some works of supererogation that would otherwise not be due from him, and then the whole idea of satisfaction would be saved.

31. However God, of his ordained power, has not disposed to give the sinner the first grace save in virtue of the merit of him who was without sin, namely Christ; because, as was touched on above [nn.27-28], he did not dispose to reconcile the enemy to himself save through an obedience more welcome to himself than the offence of his was displeasing to himself; and such obedience of his is the passion of Christ and its merit. And thus did he not dispose to give grace to the sinner without the passion of Christ, without which grace there cannot be satisfaction at all, because not equivalent in any way either simply or in divine acceptation. Therefore, much more of ordained power is it not possible for satisfaction to be made to God save in virtue of the passion of Christ.

3. What Satisfaction Consists In

32. About the third point [n.10] I say that in this understanding satisfaction consists more in penal acts or voluntary sufferings than in other non-penal good acts. Although sometimes satisfaction could be made through some non-penal good act, because God can well accept a great act of charity for the punishment due to a single crime; because though it not be punishment proper, it is yet a greater good and gives honor to God more than does what would be its proper punishment. But, as a matter of rule, just as guilt is put into order by penalty and not by anything else of greater good than the guilt is, so satisfaction said in this way consists in actions or sufferings having the idea of penalty.

33. And this is what [Ps.-]Augustine says, On True and False Penitence ch.15 n.31 (and it is in Lombard’s text, Sent. IV d.16 ch.2 n.6), “There are worthy fruits of the virtues that do not suffice for the penitent; for penitence demands weightier fruits, so that he who is dead may by grief and groans win life.”

34. Now these penal acts or voluntary sufferings are reduced, in genus, to an interior act of displeasure or passion of sadness, and to an exterior act of confessing sin (which is very penal) or to a concomitant passion (namely shame), and to an act or passion simply exterior, namely vexing of flesh (and all such vexing should be contained or reduced to fasting) or raising the mind to God (and this is done through prayer) or expending of one’s temporal goods (which is done by almsgiving).

4. Solution of the Question

35. From this the fourth article [n.10] is clear, namely the solution of the question: for whether the satisfaction be understood to be proper as determinate, that is, in species, or proper as determinate, that is, in number, a proper satisfaction does not necessarily correspond to each sin; because both the same satisfaction in species and the same in number can correspond to this sin and to that.

36. That the same in species can correspond is plain, because contrition can correspond to this sin and to that, and it is the same in species, especially if the objects be the same in species.

37. That the same in number can correspond is plain, because contrition about several sins together in general can on its own correspond to those several sins; but then, for the satisfaction to be total, it must not be lessened, because let something of it suffice for one sin and something for another, the something and the something of it, I say, are not of parts really in act, but of degrees of intensity, namely such that the contrition be in so great a degree of intensity that in a far lesser degree it would suffice for one sin, and in the degree it super-adds it would suffice for another sin beyond

38. Several satisfactions too, whether total or partial, can correspond to a single sin: Total indeed because there is no sin that cannot be remitted through contrition alone, and then the contrition alone is a total satisfaction. The same sin can also be remitted through a weak contrition and through other penalties supplying for the imperfection of the contrition. But a contrition intense on one side, and the same weak on another (along with other penalties), differ also in species, though they be equivalent in divine acceptation.

39. Briefly, then, I say that a proper satisfaction does not belong to every sin, as if, forsooth, it correspond to no other sin, and not any other sin correspond to it. But to every sin a satisfaction proper for the moment now corresponds, even though another could be proper to it. I understand by ‘proper for the moment now’ either as in itself a distinct satisfaction or as something virtually included in satisfaction.

5. About the Separation of Satisfaction from Satisfaction Taken Universally

40. As to the fifth article [n.10], I say that satisfaction, taking it in this way (which however is total and not lessened satisfaction), reconciles the one making satisfaction to him whom he has offended, because either the offense is implacable, which is contrary to mercy, or, if it is placable, it is so through nothing more than through satisfaction said in this way. But it is impossible for anyone to be reconciled to God and yet remain in some sin.

41. Hence [Ps.-]Augustine On True and False Penitence, ch.9 n.24 [in Lombard’s text, Sent. IV d.15 ch.7 n.4, and also in Gratian, Decretum, p.2 cause 33 q.3 d.3 ch.42], “I know that God is enemy to every criminal; how then would he who keeps back his crime receive pardon from another, and without the love of God obtain pardon, without which no one ever found grace? An enemy of God is he while he perseveres in his offense. It is a sort of impiety of infidelity to hope for half a pardon from him who is Justice.” It follows, then, that it is impossible to satisfy God about one sin while remaining impenitent in act about another mortal sin.

42. But if the separation of this satisfaction from another satisfaction be understood such that, while a man is actually returning to God some sort of contrition or satisfaction for this sin, indeed sufficient for this sin, he is not actually returning satisfaction sufficient for another sin - I say that the satisfaction proper to this sin can be separated from the satisfaction proper to that sin, and this as to the effect, though not as to the affection, at least in habit. For as to the effect this is plain, because just as it is not necessary for the intellect to consider simultaneously this sin and that one, so it is not necessary for the will to be penitent simultaneously about this sin and that one, and this when taking ‘to be penitent’ for any of the four significations set down in the preceding distinction, question one [d.14 n.62]. But nevertheless, while he considers one sin and is penitent about it, he does at least in habit satisfy for the other, that is, he is ready in mind, should he think about it, to make satisfaction at some time for it.