A. The Opinion which is Attributed to Peter Lombard

101. As to the first question, the opinion of the Master is said to be that the indwelling Holy Spirit alone, without any intermediate habit informing the will, moves the will to a meritorious act in a way other than he moves it to acts of belief and hope (for he moves it to acts of belief and hope through the medium of the habits of faith and hope), and in this way the Master is said to have denied any created charity.

1. Arguments for the Opinion attributed to Peter Lombard

102. One can argue for this conclusion in two ways.

103. [First way] - The first way is taken from form’s or habit’s imperfection, or from its non-necessity for causing movement.

104. Here the argument goes first as follows: as a natural act is related to a natural or acquired habit, so is the act of an infused habit to an infused habit; but an acquired habit only bestows pleasurable acting and a facility in the power for the act (but it does not give the substance of the act), as is plain from the preceding question [nn.47-51, 88]; therefore in like manner an infused habit bestows only pleasurable acting, or would so bestow it if it were present within. But he who was a sinner before and is now justified does not elicit an act of loving God with pleasure; for resistance by his vices and persistence in good works seem as difficult to him as when he was in his sins, or not much easier, until by battle and victory over his passions he has acquired some contrary habit, and then he will act with pleasure. Therefore the justified sinner has no infused habit, because in that case he would, if it were present in him, act with pleasure.

105. Further, if a supernatural good be shown to a will in its purely natural state, the will would love it well enough because it has the object sufficiently close to it; therefore an infused habit is not required for loving a supernatural good. The proof of the assumption is that if a lesser good when shown to the will has the wherewithal to be loved, then a greater good has it too; therefore if the will in its purely natural state can love something, it can love the supreme good if that good be shown to it.

106. Further, the act of loving that would belong to that supernatural habit would also be supernatural, and so it would be created immediately (for supernatural things are not brought into being by any transition from something, but only by creation), and if the act would be something created then it does not presuppose anything for its creation.

107. Further, a habit can be used when the possessor of it wants to (Averroes above, On the Soul com.18); but no one has experience of being able to use this habit when he wants to; for he cannot, when he wants, elicit with pleasure and ease fervent acts of loving God, - as is plain in the case of contemplatives, who sometimes after some effort experience themselves possessed of great devotion and sometimes after equal effort possessed of a lesser devotion or none.

108. [Second way] - The second way is taken from the fact that without a habit the Holy Spirit suffices for causing motion.

109. Here the argument goes first as follows: the first cause can do of itself what it can do along with a second cause when the second cause is only an agent cause (or the major is taken this way: ‘the first cause can do of itself whatever it can do with a second cause that is not part of the essence of the thing’; I add this because of the form and matter in a composite thing, - for God cannot make a composite thing without the intrinsic parts that compose it); but a habit, if it is present within, does not have a necessary causality with respect to its acts save after some manner of agent causality (plainly at least not after the manner of a formal cause, or of a material cause ‘about which’ [Prologue n.188]);     therefore its causality is extrinsic. Therefore whatever the Holy Spirit can cause in the act along with the habit, he can cause without the habit; plurality without necessity should, it seems, not be posited,Tr. A clear anticipation of Ockham’s razor, so called, namely that entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. ²³ because it is superfluous, -therefore , etc     .

110. Further, in order for a will possessed of a habit to act in accordance with the habit, the cooperation of the Holy Spirit is necessary, otherwise he would not be the first cause in every action of creatures; but he does not cooperate because the will has the habit, because then a created will would use the Holy Spirit as a second cause, and the Holy Spirit would not be the first but the second cause with respect to the will that has the habit, because he would be determined by the will’s habit to act along with the will;     therefore , on the contrary, because he cooperates with the will therefore the will operates in accordance with the habit. But the Holy Spirit can cooperate as equally with a will - in the first instant of its nature - that has the habit of charity as with a will that does not have it; therefore etc     .

111. Further, the Son of God was thus united to our nature, because he was doing the works of that nature in such a way that the acts were truly said to belong to the Son of God as to the acting supposit; and yet there was by this fact no derogation from the assumed nature that prevented it being also the principle of its own operations. Therefore, by an argument from similars, the Holy Spirit can be in some way united to the will such that he himself does the works of the will without there being by this fact any derogation from the nature of the will in its idea as an operative power that would prevent it being able to be the principle of its own operations.

112. Further, the intellect is more passive than the will, and less active; therefore it is more in need of something to activate it so that it has power for its own act. But the intellect is posited as being capable, without any form informing it, of the beatific vision by the mere fact that the essence of God is as it were present to it by way of form [n.193]; therefore much more can the will be capable, without any form informing it, of every one of its acts by the fact that the Holy Spirit is for it as it were the form for performing acts of love.

2. Arguments against the Opinion attributed to Peter Lombard

113. Against this conclusion, whether it be according to the intention of the Master or not, one can argue in two ways assumed from the faith: the first is taken from the justification of the sinner or from divine acceptance, and this without any elicited act, - the second is taken from the nature of a meritorious act.

114. [First way] - From the first way the argument goes first as follows: the sinner before repentance is unjust, after repentance just, in the way the Scripture calls the sinner ‘unjust’ and him who has been freed from sin ‘just’. - From this the argument runs: injustice, since it is formally a privation, cannot be taken away from anyone unless the opposite habit is given to him, because ‘to deprive of a privation’ is to put a habit in its place, for opposites are immediate in the case of a subject naturally fitted for them (Metaphysics 10.4.1055a33, 55b3-6); the soul is naturally fitted to receive justice; therefore the one who is justified, having been made just from being unjust, receives the habit opposite to the privation; for if there were nothing formally more present in him now than before, he would not more lack the privation now than he lacked it before.

115. Further, a sinner before repentance is not worthy of eternal life, but after repentance he is worthy of eternal life; but he is not worthy save by something formally inhering in him to which, according to the rules of divine justice, it is judged that eternal life should be given, and he had nothing of this sort before; therefore something positive is in the just man formally, by which he is worthy of eternal life.

116. Further, God does not accept a sinner for eternal life, but he does accept him who has been justified. I ask then what it is ‘to accept for eternal life’? It is not ‘to will -with the will of being well pleased - to beatify him for the present now’, because then God would immediately beatify him; therefore it is ‘to will that person- in accord with the disposition he now has - to be worthy of such a reward’ whom before God did not will to be worthy of such a reward. The difference here cannot, as it seems, be posited in the divine will, because nothing is new there, for the divine will is immutable; therefore it is because of a difference on the part of the person, because the divine will wants any person disposed in the same way to be disposed in the same way.

117. The confirmation of this reason [n.116] is that divine volition, because it is in itself one act, does not have the idea of opposed or distinct acts - as acts of willing and not willing - in the absence of any distinction in the connoted objects; for this ‘divine willing’ is not some willing of being well-pleased - and likewise not some not willing -unless the objects are distinct, otherwise contradictories will be true without any distinction to cause that truth; therefore, since God wills the justified person for some being for which he does not will the sinner, on account of which difference he is said in Scripture ‘to love the just’ and ‘to hate sinners’ [Proverbs 15.9; Ecclesiastes 12.3, 7; Psalm 5.7], the consequence is that this difference - according to its idea on the part of the divine volition - necessarily requires an actual distinction on the part of the objects themselves. Therefore the person in question is disposed in himself in one way when he is said to be ‘beloved of God’ or ‘accepted for eternal life’ but in another way when he is ‘hated’.

118. Lastly there is, according to this first way, an argument as follows, that if there is in the soul of this person nothing after repentance other than what was there before, it does not seem that his soul is disposed any differently toward God, nor God toward him, because this difference does not seem to be on account of any change that has happened on the part of God. Therefore if it be conceded, as seems necessary, that he be in some way differently disposed toward God, and conversely God toward him, then this is because of a change in him, - and so something will come to be formally in him de novo; but faith and hope do not come to be in him de novo, because they have remained in the sinner, - therefore charity does.

119. One might also argue, according to his first way, that God, who was offended by the sinner before, remits the offence when the sinner later repents; this is not because of any change in the divine will (as there can be in me when I remit an offense); therefore it is because of the fact that he to whom the offense is remitted is differently disposed in himself.

120. But this argument is not conclusive, as will be plain in IV d.16 q.2 n.19, where it will be said that God remits the offense to the sinner first in nature before he gives the sinner grace. Hence the arguments - if any according to this first way are valid - must be taken from passive acceptance and from order or dignity for eternal life, which accord with a justified person and not with a sinner, as has just been argued [n.119]; but they must not be taken from mere remission of the offense [n.113], which is in itself a lesser thing than to be just.

121. [Second way] - From the second way, namely from the idea of a meritorious act [n.113], the argument goes as follows:

Nothing is said to act formally in any action unless the principle of the action is the form of the agent; this is taken from On the Soul 2.2.414a12-14 where, from the fact that the soul is ‘that whereby we live and sense’     etc . [n.13], the conclusion is drawn that the soul is the act and form of what performs those acts; therefore     , since meritorious action belongs to the will, or to the man working through his will, the result is that that by which he meritoriously acts is his form. But that by which he meritoriously acts cannot be pure nature, because then he could meritoriously act from his natural powers alone, which seems to be the error of Pelagius; therefore something supernatural is required; clearly not faith or hope, because these remain in a sinner, - therefore charity.

122. Further, no action is in the power of an agent unless that agent has a form by which it can act; for if it could act through something assisting it - something merely extrinsic - which is not in its power, such an action is not in its power, just as neither is the assistance of the extrinsic thing in its power. But the Holy Spirit assisting the will is not in the power of the will, just as neither is universally the action of a superior cause in the power of an inferior cause. Therefore if the will could act from the assistance alone and did not have a form in itself by which it was sufficiently able to proceed to a meritorious act, the result follows that the meritorious act would not be in its power, -which seems discordant.

123. Further, if the Holy Spirit is moving the will in a special way in the case of a meritorious action, the consequence is that the motion is cause of something in the will itself and that, with respect to it, the will does not have any causality but only a passive receptivity; either then that something is an act of loving, and then the result is that the act of loving is in no way from the will; or it is some other thing which naturally precedes the act of loving, - and this other thing I call ‘a habit’, because a perfection prior to act in a power (a perfection that is habitual or can be habitual) seems to be a habit.

124. Further, fourth, the identity of the Father with the Son is greater than any union of the Holy Spirit with the will can be; but the Father is not said, because of this identity, to do anything by the Son, as is plain from Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.1 n.2, because ‘the Father is not wise by generated wisdom’; therefore much less will the will be said to do anything because of the union with it of ‘the Holy Spirit at work’.