4. Whether Mercy Goes Along with the Punishment of the Bad

130. As to the fourth article [n.94], as was said in d.46 q.2 [n.57], liberating mercy removes the whole of misery; mitigating but not liberating mercy removes part of what is due. The first is not relevant here, but the second.

a. Opinion of Thomas Aquinas

α. Exposition of the Opinion

131. For this the following reason is given [Aquinas, Sent. IV d.46 q.2 a.2]: “Agent and patient always correspond to each other proportionally, such that the agent is related to action as the patient to passion. Now things unequal among themselves do not have the same proportion to other things unless the other things are unequal among themselves - the way that six and four, because unequal, have the proportion of double to the similarly unequal three and two. Therefore, when the agent exceeds the patient, the action must exceed the passion.”

132. And there is confirmation of this conclusion, because we see in all equivocal agents that the patient does not receive the whole of the effect.

133. From this conclusion to the issue at hand the inference is as follows [Aquinas, ibid.]: “The giver is disposed the way an agent is, and the receiver is disposed the way a patient is; therefore, when the giver exceeds beyond the receiver, it is fitting that the giving exceed the receiving that is proportionate to the receiver. Now ‘less bad’ and ‘more good’ are reckoned as the same, as is said in Ethics 5.7.1131b22-23; therefore as God always gives beyond desert, so he always inflicts bad less than desert.” p. Refutation of the Opinion

β Refutation of the Opinion

134. Against this position. First as follows:

If two things have the same proportion to two other things, then, to the extent that one term of the first pair exceeds the other term of that first pair, to that extent one term of the second pair is exceeded by the other term of that second pair; and this holds when speaking of ‘so much’ and ‘as much’ according to proportion, not according to quantity. The point is plain in his example [n.131]: for just as six is one and half times four, so three is one and half times two. But never because the agent or giver in the issue at hand infinitely exceeds the sufferer or receiver does the agent exceed the patient, or the action exceed the passion, nor yet the act of giving go infinitely beyond desert.

135. If you say that, on the contrary, divine action and giving, as far as concerns God himself, is infinite because it is his act of willing - then the argument [n.131] is not to the purpose. For from this does not follow that the agent has some extrinsic causation greater than the passive thing is suited to receive, nor does it follow that something be extrinsically given that is greater than the receiver is fitted to receive; but it only follows that the agent’s action, as it remains in itself, is something more perfect than the reception of it; such would be the case if in the effect were given to the recipient nothing save the minimum that was proportioned to the recipient.

136. Again, his example is to the opposite purpose [n.131]: for if the passive object does not receive the total effect of an equivocal agent, then: either some other passive object does, and in that case an equivocal agent would always require several passive objects at once; or no passive object does, and in that case the agent will have, along with the effect in the passive object, another effect standing by itself - both of which results are manifestly unacceptable.This argument assumes the premise of the example, namely that the proportion of the inequality is the same on the side of both cause and effect. For if so and if there is no such proportion between God’s action and creatures, then there is an overplus on the side of God’s action that remains to be accounted for, namely the overplus that creatures are unable to receive. This overplus would therefore have to be explained away either by saying that the cause must always have many more things to work on, or by saying that the cause has an effect that stands by itself and is not an effect produced in anything. Both these results seem absurd and ad hoc. ²⁷

137. Hence, although the argument, when it speaks of the action, could be qualified by raising a difficulty in this way, that an action is taken that remains in God himself as agent, yet when it speaks of the effect (in the way the argument here says that the passive object does not receive the total effect of an equivocal agent [n.132]), it is manifestly false; and thus is it false also when it speaks of the action as it is in the passive object [n.133] (the way the Philosopher speaks in Physics [3.3.202b19-22]). 138. To the reasoning then [n.131]: either the major is false or the minor,The minor is: “Agent and patient always correspond to each other proportionally, such that the agent is related to action as the patient to passion.” The major is: “Now things unequal among themselves do not have the same proportion to other things unless the other things are unequal among themselves.” ²⁸ or it equivocates over ‘proportion’, and this when speaking of action as it is something in the passive object. For if [the minor] takes proportion properly, and thus takes it that there is a similar proportion between agent and action and between patient and passion, the proposition is false, as is this proposition ‘the patient exceeds the form received in it as much as the agent exceeds the form given by it’. Nor does this understanding of a like proportion between these four terms follow from the antecedent, that ‘the agent is proportioned to the patient’; for they are proportioned in this respect, that the one is such actually as the other is potentially, where the two are the extremes of one proportion. How can from this be inferred that these two terms have a like proportion to the other two terms, namely action and passion, save by supposing that action is such actually as the passion is potentially? - which is false. But if it takes ‘proportion’ in some way improperly, namely not according to exceeding and exceeded, but in some other way, according to which the major could perhaps have an appearance in some way of truth, then thus is the second [sc. the major] not true, that ‘unequals have a similar proportion only to unequals’ [n.101].

b. Scotus’ own Opinion

139. I say therefore that for this conclusion, namely that there is mitigating mercy in punishment, a better foundation is obtained from James 2.13, “Mercy triumphs over justice,” because, as was said at the beginning of the solution [n.89], “the more that several virtues come together in some work, the more perfect is that work;” thus, if judgment is from justice and, along with this, from mercy, it is so much the more perfect. Such is the case if, when inflicting something that justice commands to be inflicted, something is remitted that mercy inclines toward remitting; and so mercy triumphs over divine judgment to the extent that divine judgment is more perfect coming from mercy than it would be coming from justice alone.

140. Against this: on the contrary, mercy seems to destroy just judgment, for as vengeance is to be exacted by justice, so must it be exacted in proportion to the fault; therefore, as it would be against justice not to avenge, so would it be against justice not to avenge totally.

141. I reply: to give an undue good is not against justice because it is an act of liberality, and the act of one virtue is not repugnant to another; but to take away a due good is against justice. Now as it is, ‘to give good’ and ‘not to inflict bad’ keep pace with each other as far as justice is concerned; therefore ‘to inflict bad beyond what is due’ is against justice because it is to subtract a due good; but ‘to inflict bad less than what is due’ is not against justice, as neither is ‘to give an undue good’ against justice.

142. On the contrary: the argument still stands, because then ‘to inflict no bad’ would not be against justice, nor would ‘to confer or give the maximum undue good’ be against justice.

143. There is a confirmation, that to this guilt with three degrees of intensity there corresponds, in strict justice, a penalty having three dimensions or parts, a, b, c. From what has been granted, it is consistent with justice that c not be inflicted. From this follows, first, that, by parity of reasoning, it would be consistent with justice that b not be inflicted (because b is not more necessarily commanded to be inflicted than c is), and so on about a. Secondly, it follows that if justice permits one degree in the sin to go unpunished with its own proper punishment, then by parity of reasoning justice can permit another degree to go unpunished, and so the whole to go unpunished.

144. Look for the response.a

a.a [Interpolation] One must say that justice has a latitude in its degrees beyond which, if God did not punish, he would not be using justice. Therefore, although he could dismiss one degree of the penalty or two, yet it does not follow that he could therefore dismiss any degree, because then he would pass beyond the latitude required for justice. And thus is the response to these two arguments plain [nn.142-43].

     It could be said in another way that if he were to dismiss [any degree] he would not be acting against justice absolutely considered, because whatever he did he would justly do, since his will is justice itself, and his will would be acting according to justice, though not ordained justice.

     The first solution [first paragraph in this interpolation] is taken from Ord. IV dd.18-19 nn.24-26; and the second solution [second paragraph in this interpolation] is taken from the present distinction [nn.29-34].