II. To the Initial Arguments

A. To the First

150. As to the first main argument [n.76], I concede that there is sense memory in man, but from this does not follow that there is no intellective memory in him; for what belongs to the perfection of a lower cognitive power should not be denied to a higher cognitive power. Hence if God could have an act after passage of time (and would not have an act stationary in eternity), he could remember; and thus does Scripture concede that he remembers, “Remember, Lord, what has happened to us” (Lamentations 5.1), namely insofar as the act that is not in him after passage of time is considered as coexistent with a prior time, and as coexistent now with this ‘now’ as if after passage of time. But the angels, because they do not have all their intellections permanently, can absolutely remember; for it is fatuous to say that Lucifer does not remember that he sinned, or that the good angels do not remember that they had such and such intelligible acts, or had also some exterior acts about a body.

B. To the Second

151. As to the second [n.77], that authority is speaking of the intellect as it has scientific intellection, of the sort that is abstractive only - and yet the precise cause does not thus come from the nature of the intellect, because the singular can also be understood by that abstractive knowledge, although not by us now (on which elsewhere, Ord. II d.9 n.122, d.3 nn.320-321).

152. If you object that a power that does not know the singular as singular does not remember, because a rememberer cognizes something as it is here and now, which is proper to a singular - I reply: actual existence belongs to nature first; hence ‘this nature’ is not formally existent because it is ‘this’, but because of nature; now nature, as existent, is what the intellect intuitively knows, and the knowledge of an existent as existent is sufficient for remembrance of it to be possible. When, therefore, you say that the remembering power knows this as this, I deny it. When you give as proof that it knows something as it is here and now, if by ‘now’ you mean ‘existent’ and by ‘here’ you mean

‘present in itself’, I concede that it knows something as existent in its presence in itself. If so, then there are proper singulars beyond the ‘here’ and ‘now’, so that they can be singulars of nature but not as of a singular - though they are not of anything save what is singular by intrinsic or adjunct singularity; however, they do not include, nor do they per se presuppose, singularity as the precise reason whereby they are present.

C. To the Third

153. To the third [n.78] it is said in one way [Richard of Middleton] that the blessed remember the sins they committed, and yet it is not a punishment for them but they rejoice in the mercy of God remitting sin and in their freedom from punishment. And this is proved by Psalm 88.2, “The mercies of God,” where Gregory says [Moralia 4.36 n.72], “How does he sing mercies forever who does not remember his misery?”

154. On the contrary: although the fact that God remitted Peter his sin includes the fact that Peter sinned, yet these are simply distinct intelligibilities, and the second does not include the first in being (the fact is plain about when Peter did the sin), nor consequently does it include it in being understood; therefore it is possible for Peter’s intellect to stop thus at his having sinned without considering that God has forgiven these sins. And though you may contend one act was never without the other in Peter, yet there are at least two objects and two distinct intellections, and also the intellection that Peter sinned is prior in nature.

155. I ask a question therefore about this remembering by which he remembers that he sinned: which act of will does it follow? Either the willing it or being pleased, or the not willing it and being displeased - or neither, not pleased nor displeased? If the first Peter is evil, because he is pleased with the sin he has committed; if the second, he is wretched, because his not wanting to have happened what he knows did happen causes sadness (from Augustine, On the Trinity 14.15 n.21, “Sadness comes from things that have happened against our will” [cf. Ord.IV d.14 n.48]). If neither the one nor the other, he is again bad; for if the wayfarer cannot remember with full remembrance the sin he committed without detesting it or being displeased at it (otherwise he sins at least by omission), how much more are the blessed held to do this! For the common reason binds the blessed more than the wayfarer, which reason is perfect love of God, and this love always impels one to hate what is contrary to God when it is actually thought on.

156. But as to what is added from the Psalm, and Gregory’s argument from this “How does he sing mercies forever who does not remember his misery?” [nn.153, 78, 81] - I reply: he remembers his misery in general terms, because he now knows he is blessed.

157. I say it is possible for God to destroy every sin totally from the memory of the blessed; nor in this is anything taken from the blessed; rather it would seem to belong to some accidental blessedness in them. For if the innocent will rejoice over their innocence with a special joy (as was touched on in Ord. IV d.1 n.356), though these others not be able to rejoice over innocence (because this would be a false joy), yet their guilt can be destroyed from their memory so that they not have any matter for sadness about it.

158. Also, God is able, while habitual memory of committed sin remains, to preserve the blessed from ever proceeding to actually considering they committed it; and this again would suffice to exclude the proximate occasion for sadness, though not the remote one. Nor would privation of such habitual knowledge make one imperfect in anything because, according to the Philosopher [Topics 3.6.119b11-15], it is better to forget certain things, as base things, than to remember them, and this is especially true when speaking of something base one did, the memory of which is penal. Scripture too [Isaiah 43.25, Jeremiah 31.34, Hebrews 10.17, Psalm 31.1] says that God forgets sins and that they are covered up for God. And although one should give exposition of this, because of the infinity of the divine intellection which nothing positively or privatively knowable can escape, yet that they are really hidden or forgotten for those who committed them would not be at all unacceptable.

159. If this view does not satisfy, but it is held that there will always remain habitual memory of sins in them and that they will sometimes proceed to actual remembering, then, to avoid sadness, one must say that either God suspends the causality that memory would be of a nature to exercise with respect to sadness (and this is indeed possible, just as God suspended the natural action of fire with respect to the young men in the furnace [Daniel 3.49-50]), and then it is a miracle that they are not saddened as often as they remember. Or if a miracle is eschewed, one must say that a natural cause can be impeded by a contrary that excels it so that it not cause its effect, and especially when the contrary totally fills the capacity of the passive thing.

160. Thus, in the issue at hand, joy in the beatific object totally fills the capacity of the blessed, and therefore they are not capable of the sadness that is of a nature to follow this memory. For the beatific object in causing joy overcomes the power of the memory in causing sadness, according to the Philosopher Ethics 7.15.1154b13-14, “Strong delight expels every sadness, not only the contrary sadness but also any chance sadness.”

161. On the contrary: the blessed have a ‘not wanting’ with respect to the remembered thing, therefore they do not have what they want; therefore they are not blessed, from On the Trinity 13.5 n.8.

162. I reply: the blessed have whatever they want as regard the present or the future; but as regard the past they do not have whatever they want, that is their wanting it not to have been; and this does not argue misery, because it is impossible for the past not to have been.