II. To the Initial Arguments

145. As to the first main argument [n.80], Augustine speaks of the evil of guilt, not of penalty, because God is indeed the judge of the bad, Deuteronomy 32.35, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.”

146. On the contrary: the proof of Augustine does stand at least, that “A man becomes worse when no wise man is in authority;” therefore much more when God is not in authority, as Augustine himself argues; but a man becomes worse through punishment, because bad is added to bad.

147. I reply: when a first bad stands, the second added bad, though it be worse than it, yet is not worse simply, because not worse in comparison with the universe, whose order requires that the first bad, while it remains, be put in order by another bad. An example: it would have been better for the man born blind in John 9.1-41 to have had sight from the beginning, but not better in its ordering to the manifestation of the divine wisdom and goodness. When therefore the phrase “a man becomes worse when no wise man is in authority” is taken, either it must be expounded of the evil of guilt or, if it is about bad simply, one should say that this man does not become simply worse through the added penalty, though he have a more multiple evil, because the proportion of the second bad to the first in him is just.

148. As to the second [n.81], it is said [Aquinas, Sent. IV d.46 q.1 a.1] that if the bad man had lived perpetually he would have sinned perpetually, and therefore he is perpetually punished because in his will he has sinned perpetually. And this is the reasoning of Gregory, Moralia ch.19 n.36.

149. On the contrary: someone sins with the intention of repenting; therefore, neither implicitly nor explicitly does he sin with perpetual willingness.

Response: he exposes himself to the perpetuity of sin, as was said in the solution about someone throwing himself into a pit [n.108], and especially so when he remains without penance for the whole time of his life.

150. There is another way of speaking, which seems to be Augustine’s in City of God 21.11, where he seems to say that justice does not require a perpetual penalty to be inflicted in order for it to be sufficient for the guilt, but the penalty is perpetual for the reason that the person is perpetual and remains perpetually in guilt. For Augustine says, “What holds of the removal of men from this mortal city by the penalty of the first death, holds of the removal of men from that immortal city by the penalty of the second death.” And a little before, about certain penalties inflicted in this city, he says, “Surely penalties similar to eternal ones are seen to hold for the manner of this life? Indeed, that they cannot be eternal is for the reason that the life too itself that is punished by them does not stretch into eternity.” He means to say that there is a sort of guilt that does not merit total exclusion from the city, and that this is temporal even in respect of civic life; but some guilt is so great that it merits total exclusion from this civic life, and the intensity of it corresponds to the guilt - but the extension happens to be finite because the life is finite. So, in the issue at hand, mortal guilt deserves total exclusion from the supernal city, but for this reason precisely is it perpetual, that the life is perpetual along with the guilt.

151. The reason for this seems to be that it would be possible for God, according even to the strict rigor of justice, to reckon out a penalty so intense that it would sufficiently correspond to the guilt even if nature were to be at once annihilated; therefore, the fact that an eternal penalty is now inflicted is not because eternity belongs per se to the idea of the penalty insofar as a penalty is equally punitive [sc. gives punishment equal to the fault], but the penalty happens to be eternal because of the eternity of the person punished and of the persisting guilt. And this reason better preserves how “according to the manner of the fault will the manner of the beatings be” [n.81], speaking of the intensity that is per se required in a penalty - infinite extension is accidental to it, for the aforesaid reasons [nn.150-151].

152. To the next [n.82] I say that medicine is double: curative and preservative. Thus is punishment a double medicine: it is inflicted on the corrigible to cure him, and inflicted on the incorrigible to preserve, not him indeed, but others, if it is for the good of the community that some penalties be made determinate by the legislator, and that they be inflicted on the delinquent. And not only in the determination but also in the infliction are medicines preservative for those who are in a state of preservation. But that they are medicines in neither way for the one punished is not repugnant to justice; the point is plain in the civic penalties that are exterminating or determinate for great guilt.

153. To the next [n.83] I say that James’s meaning is about liberating mercy, and likewise Augustine’s.

154. To the next [n.84]: the ‘as much...as’ does not deny equality of quantity but equality of proportion;An obscure point and argument. ²⁹ that is: let him who has glorified himself more inordinately than another be punished more than another in like proportion. Thus, even if the reward exceed merit, he who has merited more than another is proportionately rewarded more -“which may He grant us who lives and reigns God for ever and ever.”